Russia is earning billions selling nuclear fuel to the West

Russia’s nuclear exports have nearly doubled in the past two years, Tortoise analysis reveals. More than a third of these exports last year went to two Western countries providing military support to Ukraine – the US and France.

So what? Russia has also spent the past two years threatening the West with nuclear weapons as it wages war on Ukraine.  

• Russia wants it both ways – to be able to terrorise with nuclear weapons and be seen as a responsible partner in the supply of nuclear fuel. 
• It is holding Europe hostage with the threat of nuclear disaster thanks to its military occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
• So far the West’s response has been: OK.

Nuclear fuel. Nuclear power is back in favour as countries look to replace (Russian) oil and gas to reduce emissions. But this has increased dependence on Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear power company.

• Other countries, including Western allies like Canada and Australia, have uranium mines and substantial reserves. 
• But Moscow dominates processing capacity – especially the commercial processing of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), the kind that’s used by the most advanced modern reactors.

Poland and the Baltic states have pushed for nuclear materials to be included in the EU’s energy sanctions. But Hungary, which has a Russian-built nuclear plant, has said it will veto any such measures.

Tortoise analysis of trade data reveals that:

• Russia’s total nuclear exports grew from $1.6 billion to $3.1 billion between 2021 and 2023.
• US imports of Russian nuclear fuel and technology rose from $650 million in 2022 to $900 million last year.
• France bought $324 million-worth of Russian nuclear technology last year and announced plans for Europe’s most ambitious nuclear construction programme.
• Turkey has increased its imports of Russian nuclear materials from $82 million to $200 million, up 144 per cent in a year.

Nuclear threat. Rosatom has been closely involved in the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility. Ukrainian employees of the plant have reportedly been forced to sign contracts with the Russian nuclear company – although a spokeswoman for Rosatom denied anyone had been coerced into signing contracts or accepting Russian citizenship.

A number of employees at the plant have also been detained and tortured by Russian forces, according to testimony gathered by The Reckoning Project, which documents potential war crimes.

• The head of the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, briefed the Security Council yesterday after a series of drone attacks at Zaporizhzhia in the past week. 
• The IAEA says these attacks “significantly” increase the risk of a nuclear accident.

What next? There are some signs of a shift away from Moscow.

• Belgium’s prime minister has urged other European countries to wean themselves off Russian nuclear fuel.
• Bulgaria has turned to the US company Westinghouse to build nuclear reactors to break its historic reliance on Russia for nuclear technology.
• A spokesman for Urenco, the western European consortium which is a major supplier of uranium, said a “non-Russian” requirement had become a common request from customers.

But… The French nuclear power company Framatome is currently involved in a joint venture with Rosatom to produce nuclear fuel rods of the kind used in Russian-designed reactors at a facility in Germany. Framatome is also a subcontractor to Rosatom for the expansion of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant.

Rosatom has also signed deals to develop a new wave of nuclear power plants across Africa 

from Egypt to Burkina Faso and Uganda, potentially locking in future dependency on Russian fuel.

Darya Dolzikova, an expert on nuclear policy at RUSI, said: “It’s a strategically important sector for Moscow. And the contracts in the civil nuclear sector are very, very long-term contracts… So you have this very long continued dependence on Russia once there is a nuclear power plant that’s built in the country.”

What’s more… Kazakhstan’s imports of nuclear materials from Russia have surged from $330,000 to $174 million in the past two years, suggesting it is being used as a conduit. Kazakhstan has exported particularly large amounts of nuclear material to China.

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