UK says Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is still Ukraine’s

In its April 2026 statement to the 10th Review Meeting of the Convention on Nuclear Safety, the UK government made one point very clear: the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant remains a Ukrainian nuclear installation. If you are trying to make sense of a very technical dispute, that is the place to start. This is not only an argument about territory. It is also about who is legally responsible for a nuclear site, who gets to speak for it in international forums, and whether safety rules can still hold when war reaches a power plant.

You do not need to be a treaty lawyer to follow the issue. The Convention on Nuclear Safety is an international agreement under which states are expected to show how they keep nuclear power stations safe and answer questions from other countries. The review meeting is where that checking happens. That matters because the whole system depends on trust. Countries are meant to report honestly on facilities they lawfully control and regulate. If that basic rule breaks down, the review process starts to lose its value.

The UK said it remains gravely concerned about the nuclear safety risks created by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and by Russia’s continued presence at Zaporizhzhia. In plain English, the warning is that a nuclear facility is being forced to operate in circumstances it was never designed or licensed to endure. According to the UK government statement, Russia’s presence is stopping Ukraine’s competent authorities from exercising effective regulatory control. That may sound dry, but it is actually very simple: the people who are supposed to inspect, regulate and oversee safety cannot fully do their jobs.

The UK also rejected Russia’s claim that the plant has somehow been transferred into Russian jurisdiction. It said this position is fully aligned with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has consistently treated Zaporizhzhia as a Ukrainian nuclear installation. That alignment matters. When the IAEA and a state such as the UK say the plant is Ukrainian, they are not making a symbolic point. They are saying that legal ownership, regulatory authority and international responsibility still rest with Ukraine, even while Russian forces remain present at the site.

This is where Article 4 of the Convention becomes important. The UK said only Ukraine is entitled to report on the safety of Zaporizhzhia under the treaty. What this means for you as a reader is straightforward: a state that neither lawfully owns nor lawfully regulates a nuclear installation cannot credibly report on it as if it were its own. The UK warned that any such reporting would undermine the integrity of the whole peer review process. In other words, this is not just a row over paperwork. It is a test of whether international nuclear oversight still means what it says.

London’s criticism went further. The statement said Russia has shown blatant disregard for the aims and obligations of the Convention on Nuclear Safety by exposing nuclear installations to risks they were never meant to face and by cutting across the treaty’s purpose of preventing accidents and limiting radiological harm. The UK also pointed to interference with independent regulatory oversight, interference with the duties of the licence holder, and the presence of unauthorised personnel at Zaporizhzhia. It said these actions stop the legally responsible Ukrainian organisations from meeting their obligations under Articles 8 and 9. The technical wording is dense, but the message is not: the bodies meant to be accountable cannot act freely.

The statement ended on two notes that are worth holding onto. First, the UK commended Ukraine for continuing to take part in the review meeting and for trying to meet its treaty obligations in exceptionally difficult conditions. That shows why international institutions still matter in wartime: they keep a public record, they keep scrutiny alive, and they make it harder for facts to be blurred. Second, the UK gave its full support to the IAEA’s work with Ukraine to reduce the risk of a nuclear accident and paid tribute to IAEA staff working under unprecedented pressure. The bigger lesson here is that nuclear safety depends not only on technology, but on law, independence and the ability of the right authorities to do their work without coercion.