After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western efforts have aggressively targeted Moscow’s oil and gas revenues — from US tariffs on countries buying Russian oil to the EU’s plan to phase out Russian gas by 2027. One energy sector has largely escaped comparable sanctions: nuclear power.
Russia, through state-owned Rosatom and its subsidiaries, has been expanding a global nuclear footprint. Rosatom offers full nuclear-plant packages — financing, construction, and core components such as the Nuclear Steam Supply System — and argues the business is commercially important. Rosatom reported overseas revenue of $18 billion in 2024, up 10% year on year. That is small next to Russia’s oil and gas exports, but the influence of the nuclear sector cannot be measured by revenue alone.
Rosatom projects continue worldwide: Rooppur in Bangladesh, El Dabaa in Egypt, Balkhash in Kazakhstan, Hungary’s Paks II inside the EU, and Turkey’s Akkuyu in a NATO member state. Finland did cancel a Rosatom contract after Russia’s 2022 invasion, but many other deals have persisted. Experts describe this as the product of a long-term strategy to secure market footholds.
Russia is also pushing nuclear energy in parts of the Global South where electricity demand is limited. In recent years Rosatom signed cooperation memorandums and agreements with several African states, including Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. These pacts are often framed as first steps toward eventual plant construction, even if implementation remains distant.
A central strategic aim is access to uranium. In 2025 Russia announced plans to mine uranium in Niger — a country that previously exported its uranium to France — with Russian officials framing the move as building an entire system for peaceful nuclear development. Shifts in Sahel politics and criticism of former colonial powers have opened space for deeper ties with Moscow. Russian messaging emphasizes noninterference: officials and some analysts say Russia pitches itself as an honest economic and technological partner, not a political patron.
Nuclear cooperation tends to bind partners into long-term dependencies. Buying a Russian nuclear plant usually means signing up for decades of support and services: planning, fuel supplies, enrichment, and maintenance can keep a country linked to Russian providers for “at least four to six decades,” as one legal expert notes. That relationship gives Russia leverage beyond commerce: it can translate into diplomatic sway. Analysts point out that countries hosting Russian nuclear projects have often abstained or avoided hostile votes on Russia in international fora since 2022. Voting behavior is mixed and not uniformly pro-Russian, but projects can create political room for Moscow.
Another source of leverage is Russia’s dominant role in enriched uranium. Between 2013 and 2023 Moscow exported roughly $20.5 billion worth of enriched uranium, ahead of other suppliers. The nuclear fuel chain involves mining, enrichment, and fabrication into fuel elements — a multi-stage process that takes years to reconfigure. That makes shifting suppliers difficult on short notice.
Western governments are trying to reduce dependence on Russian nuclear fuel. The United States has acknowledged heavy reliance on foreign sources and has taken steps to build domestic capacity, including plans for a new enrichment facility in Tennessee announced in 2024. A US law banning imports of Russian uranium came into effect in August 2024, although waivers allow certain supplies to continue through 2027 to avoid short-term reactor fuel shortages.
The EU’s energy plan aims to eliminate Russian gas imports, and it includes a commitment to replace Russian nuclear fuel “with fuel from European sources where possible.” But EU language and measures on the nuclear sector have been less forceful than those on oil and gas, reflecting the technical complexity and long-term nature of fuel supply chains.
Russia’s nuclear diplomacy also reaches major powers. Post-Cold War cooperation and treaties between Russia and the United States helped shape nuclear relations for years, but ties frayed after Crimea in 2014 and deteriorated further after 2022, with many agreements suspended or allowed to lapse. Meanwhile, Russia continues to cultivate technical expertise and commercial offerings built on Soviet-era experience, which leaderships and analysts see as an asset Moscow can deploy internationally.
In public forums, Russian leaders have promoted nuclear expansion globally. At events like World Atomic Week, President Vladimir Putin emphasized support for the Global South’s nuclear ambitions and rejected accusations of technological colonialism. Russian officials and some analysts present Moscow’s approach as an alternative to Western actors: offering financing, turnkey projects and long-term service without political conditions.
The combined effect of construction contracts, fuel exports and uranium deals makes Russia’s nuclear reach a strategic tool: smaller in revenue than hydrocarbons but capable of producing decades-long ties, supply dependencies and diplomatic influence. Western efforts to diversify enrichment and fuel fabrication capacity may reduce that leverage over time, but the technical and temporal challenges mean disentangling nuclear relationships will remain a prolonged task.