Kyiv: The head of Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom stated that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) can only be operated by Ukraine due to technical and licensing constraints, dismissing the possibility of "jointly operating" the plant with Russia.

According to Anadolu Agency, Pavlo Kovtoniuk, the acting chairman of the board of NNEGC Energoatom, made these remarks during a briefing. He emphasized that Ukraine holds the exclusive licenses for all functional elements of the facility, from the reactors to the sophisticated control systems.

Kovtoniuk further described Moscow's attempts to issue its own licenses for the plant as "absurd," highlighting that Russia lacks the necessary projects and licenses to manage specific components, including the Westinghouse nuclear fuel utilized at the site.

As the Russia-Ukraine conflict nears the end of its fourth year, the fate of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant remains unresolved amid intensified US-mediated peace talks aimed at ending the ongoing conflict.

Located near the city of Enerhodar in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the facility is Europe's largest nuclear power plant and ranks among the world's 10 biggest. The situation surrounding the plant has remained highly volatile since the war began.

The plant has not supplied electricity to Ukraine's national grid since September 2022, with its reactor units placed in varying states of shutdown over that period. At least one of the plant's six units has been placed in hot shutdown to provide district heating to Enerhodar, home to most of the facility's staff, as well as process steam for liquid radioactive waste treatment.