Zaporizhzhia: a ceasefire due to repairs to the transmission line. But also the question of a radically new model of governance.

With the mediation of the IAEA, Russian and Ukrainian forces agreed on a “localized ceasefire” to enable repairs to the key power infrastructure around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the Kyiv Independent reports and speculates about a completely new form of governance for this nuclear power plant.

Repair work on damaged power lines has begun around the plant after the warring parties agreed to a temporary ceasefire, confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

This temporary and localized ceasefire was enabled by the direct mediation of the IAEA team on the ground, and the aim is to allow technicians to safely access the damaged power lines that connect the Zaporizhzhia plant with external energy sources. Work is expected to take several days.

The IAEA Director General, Rafael Grossi, thanked both sides for the agreement reached, stressing that such efforts are part of the ongoing fight to prevent a nuclear accident during the armed conflict. “This temporary ceasefire is necessary to ensure the stability of the plant's external power supply, which is vital for cooling the reactor and spent fuel pools, even when the reactors are in a cold shutdown state,” according to the IAEA statement.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, which before the war produced 20% of Ukraine's electricity, has not been producing power for more than three years and is in a state of cold shutdown. But since March 2022, the facility has faced numerous challenges: outages of external power, shelling, and staff shortages, yet this localized ceasefire shows that nuclear safety is one of the few points on which the warring sides have successfully negotiated.

And we add one more detail: Kyiv Independent reports that in the background there is talk about the question of long-term control over the plant and specifies that there is the so-called “trilateral governance” on the table, in which Russia, Ukraine and the United States will be responsible for governance. We note that the proposed “trilateral governance model” is a real precedent in the world of nuclear energy. If implemented, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would become the first nuclear power plant in the world jointly managed by two states in conflict with the participation of a third state.

Ukraine, of course, expresses strong concern that such a trilateral governance model would practically legalize Russia's presence at the facility and violate Ukraine's territorial integrity, but we are not really surprised: a few months ago, the American president proposed that after the war the U.S. would “take control” of Ukraine's nuclear power plants, about which members of our editorial team have already written for Portal Novosti.