Rostekhnadzor

Rostekhnadzor (the Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service) issued 10-year operating licences for Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant units 1 and 2 on 2 April 2026, a regulatory action the IAEA and Western analysts read as a signal that Moscow intends to retain administrative control of the plant for at least a decade regardless of any negotiated settlement. Rosatom separately confirmed the reactors cannot be restarted while fighting continues.

Rostekhnadzor is the Russian federal regulator for nuclear, industrial, and environmental safety, equivalent in function to the US NRC or France's ASN. It operates under the Government of the Russian Federation and is responsible for licensing, inspection, and safety oversight of Russia's civil nuclear fleet. Its authority extends only to facilities under Russian administrative control; ZNPP has operated under Russian military and administrative occupation since March 2022. The licences notionally run through 2036.

The licence issuance sits in increasingly sharp contrast to ZNPP's actual physical condition. In the week around 17-22 April 2026, the plant lost all external power for the fourteenth and fifteenth times of the war. The main 750 kV Dniprovska line was repaired via an IAEA-mediated local Ceasefire then lost again; repair crews simultaneously discovered new damage on the 330 kV Ferosplavna-1 backup feeder 1.8 km from the switchyard. Rostekhnadzor's 10-year administrative claim sits alongside a plant whose external power architecture is being degraded in real time.