Opinion: Despite the risks, Russia continues to use Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as a source of leverage

In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia may be planning to restart at least one of the six reactors at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which Russia has occupied since March 2022. The reporting raised concerns about the safety of the plant, were such a decision to be taken. Then on May 28, Aleksey Likhachev, the head of Russia’s state-owned nuclear enterprise, Rosatom, stated that the restarting of the ZNPP would be conditional on guarantees of the facility’s safety, adding that “time will tell” how the requisite safety conditions will be met and that they could be achieved through the retreat of the front line “as far as possible” from the ZNPP.