Beyond oil and gas: the nuclear loophole in sanctions is Putin’s trump card

Russian oil and gas face sanctions, but nuclear energy is another story. Here’s Russia’s influence and why countries continue to turn to this country for nuclear energy.

Following Russia’s war in Ukraine, the West took steps to cut oil and gas revenues from Moscow — from US President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil to the European Union promising to phase out imports of Russian gas “once and for all” by November 2027.

But one Russian energy sector escaped major sanctions: nuclear energy.

“Nuclear energy is not as big as the oil and gas sector, so hasn’t received much attention so far“, said Sebastian Stier, author of the chapter “Russia’s Nuclear Interdependencies” in the World Report on the State of the Nuclear Industry 2025.

Russia has steadily expanded its global nuclear presence through its state-owned nuclear company Rosatom and its subsidiaries. Rosatom not only provides financing or technological support, but also exports complete solutions for nuclear power plants — from building the infrastructure to supplying the main component, the Nuclear Steam Supply System, which drives power generation.

“Russia has a strong interest in keeping this deal going because it generates substantial revenues,” Stier told DW.

Rosatom’s 2024 performance report states that “revenue from projects abroad increased by 10% compared to the previous year, reaching 18 billion dollars (15.5 billion euros)”.

This amount is insignificant compared to the amount generated by Russia from oil and gas. In 2024, despite sanctions, the country exported more than six times that amount in oil and gas.

Although financially modest compared to oil and gas exports, the role of the Russian nuclear sector cannot be judged by revenue alone.

Although Finland canceled a contract with Rosatom shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian-backed nuclear projects continue elsewhere, such as the Rooppur plant in Bangladesh, El Dabaa in Egypt and Balkhash in Kazakhstan.

Construction continued even within the EU, at the Paks II plant in Hungary, as well as in a NATO member state, the Akkuyu plant in Turkey.

“This is the result of a long-term strategy to establish a strong presence in these markets,” said Stier.

Russia is bringing more nuclear energy to the Global South

Russia is actively promoting nuclear energy, including targeting countries with limited electricity demand, according to Hartmut Winkler, professor of Physics at the University of Johannesburg and one of the authors of the Report on the Status of the World Nuclear Industry since 2023.

In Africa, Rosatom signed a Memorandum of Understanding on nuclear cooperation with the military government of Niger in July 2025. Similar agreements were signed with the Burkina Faso and the Mali.

According to Winkler, these agreements are largely strategic.

“Russia established these cooperation agreements with the aim of, one day, build a nuclear power plant. But they are still a long way off,” he said.

Creating new uranium supply chains with Russia

In addition to building nuclear power plants, Russia appears to have a strong interest in African uranium — a crucial resource that, once enriched, powers nuclear reactors.

In July 2025, for example, Russia announced its intention to extract uranium in Nigera country that exported all of its uranium to France in 2022 and 2023. “Our task is not just to participate in uranium mining, we must create a complete system for the development of peaceful nuclear energy in Niger,” said Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev during a visit to Niamey.

These developments come at a time when Sahel nations such as Niger appear to be reassessing their relations with former colonial power France and other Western nations, while also exploring deeper energy ties with Russia. An example: Niger’s Prime Minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, accused France of “looting” its resources at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025. “Uranium has brought nothing but misery, pollution, rebellion, corruption and desolation for the people of Niger, and prosperity and power for the French,” he said.

Mark Hibbs, a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program who specializes in nuclear policy, said Russia presents itself as distinct from Western countries.

“The Russians will be honest negotiators… They will not try to impose a political narrative to countries that are interested in their economic and technological development,” he said.

In September 2025, President Vladimir Putin reinforced this message during World Atomic Energy Week, expressing support for the nuclear ambitions of “countries of the Global South and East” and rejecting the notion of “technological colonialism”.

Hibbs explained that the former Soviet Union built a reservoir of expertise that Russia continues to draw on.

“The Russian Government, which rebuilt itself after the fall of the Soviet Union, understood that this was an asset that Russia could use to move forward,” he said.

Nuclear energy cooperation goes further

Buying nuclear facilities from Russia implies signing up to a long-term support and dependency package that can last.”at least four to six decades“, according to Chia-Yun Po, a legal scholar specializing in arms control, nuclear non-proliferation and international law, and associate at Yale Law School. “Through this nuclear diplomacy, by engaging with host countries, Russia would maintain a long-term relationship with other governments.”

Winkler argues that Russia’s expansion into these nuclear markets has influenced the way other countries respond diplomatically to Moscow’s foreign policy actions. “[Nos] countries where Russia is building a nuclear power plant, this gives them a lot of leeway on the foreign policy of these countries, because, effectively, it means that Russia holds the key to the electricity supply in that country.”

Winkler highlighted the way these countries voted at the United Nations after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine: “They always tend to abstain or certainly anwill not take a hostile stance towards Russia.”

In March 2022, for example, China and Bangladesh abstained from a UN General Assembly resolution calling for Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine. In April, Egypt joined Bangladesh in abstaining from a vote to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, while the China voted against the suspension.

However, abstentions and yes votes do not necessarily reflect implicit support for Russia or full support for Ukraine. Hungary voted to condemn Russia. But Prime Minister Viktor Orbán strongly opposes EU sanctions against Moscow. In January 2023, for example, he said in an interview with Hungarian state radio that the Hungary would block any EU sanctions against Russia that targeted the nuclear sector.

Russia’s use of nuclear cooperation as a diplomatic tool also extends to major powers, including the United States. In the 2000s and early 2010s, the US and Russia signed several nuclear agreements post-Cold War era, mainly the 2010 New START Treaty, signed by then US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, which established limits on deployed strategic arsenals.

But the relationship has since deteriorated. Following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, nuclear agreements have been suspended, abandoned, or expired.

Russia’s dominance over enriched uranium

Russia’s nuclear reach is not just reflected in the number of countries with which it has nuclear agreements. Moscow also provides a crucial part of the nuclear energy chain: enriched uraniumthe fuel that powers the reactors.

Between 2013 and 2023, Moscow exported $20.5 billion in enriched uranium. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands came in a distant second and third, with $10.6 billion and $9.5 billion, respectively.

This dominance gives Russia a considerable advantage, as ensuring the supply of nuclear fuel It’s a complex process. Any nuclear energy company needs to “buy uranium in some countries around the world, then find a company that enriches it and then find a company that produces the fuel elements”, according to Stier.

“All these processes are long-term… and cannot be changed in 1 to 3 years,” he said.

Western countries are trying reduce your dependence of Russian nuclear fuel.

Po said the US recognizes that it has been “highly dependent on foreign sources,” including Russia.

Stier stressed that Western countries — like the US — are taking active steps to end this dependence. In September 2024, the US, for example, announced the plan to build a new uranium enrichment facility in Tennessee.

A law banning the import of uranium from Russia came into force in August 2024. But this does not mean that the US has completely freed itself from dependence on Russia. Exemptions until the end of 2027 ensure that critical reactor fuel remains available during transition away from Moscow supplies. Disentangling itself from Russian nuclear supplies also poses a challenge for the EU. On January 26, the European Commission (EC) announced the latest plan to end energy imports from Russia. The plan established “a regulation to ban the import of Russian gas” and mentioned the intention to “present a legislative proposal in early 2026 to ban the import of Russian oil.”

But the language used regarding the Russian nuclear sector seems less ambitious. The EC noted that “the objective would be replace Russian nuclear fuelthe last source of Russian energy still imported by the EU, for fuel from European sources whenever possible.”