US willing to lead Ukraine nuclear plant, energy secretary says

David Wethe, Julie Fine and Joe Mathieu, Bloomberg News on Mar 20, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. could lead the operation of a nuclear plant in Ukraine “with very little problem” if the political decision is made to do so, according to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Along with local experts, “we’d bring high-end nuclear experts from the United States, and together wise decisions would be made,” Wright said Thursday in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “America is full of expertise in this area.”

Wright said there has been no dialogue yet about the possibility of U.S. companies buying a facility like the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, which has been occupied by Russians since early in the war.

President Donald Trump brought up the idea to help operate electric infrastructure in Ukraine during a conversation with the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Wednesday.

“He said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its U.S. electricity and utility expertise,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters later Wednesday. “American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.”

(Jennifer A. Dlouhy contributed to this report.)