Nuclear Monitor #931
Pauline Boyer; Greenpeace France
Foreword
This article contains several excerpts from reports published by Greenpeace, result of the work of Greenpeace’s French office and Greenpeace Ukraine nuclear experts Shaun Burnie and Jan Vande Putte.
Article
The red and black hull of the Michaïl Dudin cuts through the dark waters of the port after passing through the entrance lock in the morning mist of Dunkirk in northern France. In its hold is a rather unusual cargo: cylindrical containers of uranium enriched in Russia and colorful rectangular containers of natural uranium straight from the mine. It’s the usual shipment. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has not stopped the incessant ballet of cargo ships with their uranium swollen bellies between Saint Petersburg and Dunkirk. From Russia to France.
Russian uranium fueling French and European power plants
In 2022, France almost tripled its imports of Russian enriched uranium in the midst of the invasion of Ukraine, with Russia supplying a third of the enriched uranium needed to power French nuclear reactors. That same year, nearly half of the natural uranium imported into France came from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, while almost all of the natural uranium from Kazakhstan, and a considerable portion of that from Uzbekistan, passed through the hands of Rosatom, which controls the transport of all nuclear materials transiting Russian territory [1]. Also in 2022, all French exports of reprocessed uranium (RepU) were sent to Russia, and all imports of re-enriched uranium (ERU) into France came from Russia.
France is 100% dependent on Russia for the reuse of its reprocessed uranium, thereby justifying its spent fuel reprocessing facility in La Hague in order to perpetuate the myth of recyclable nuclear fuel at an enormous environmental cost, given the radioactive pollution that the plant releases into the air and the English Channel. This long-term collaboration with Russia also serves as a dumping ground for 90% of the French reprocessed uranium waste sent to the secret nuclear town called Severks in Siberia.
After more than three and a half years of occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine by Russian armed forces and the Russian company Rosatom, the balance sheet for uranium imports in 2024 shows that France continues to import enriched uranium from Russia [2]. A quarter of the enriched uranium imported by France in 2024 came from Russia. In 2024, nearly half of the natural uranium imported into France still came from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, most of it via Russia, controlled by Rosatom.
Through this trade, France is fueling the war in Ukraine, in total contradiction with the French government’s official positions on its support for the Ukrainian people. French nuclear industry players have so far deemed that no change in their relations with Rosatom is necessary. Worse still, these ties are set to grow stronger. Indeed, the uranium trade is only the tip of the iceberg.
French and Russian nuclear cooperation: a long-standing partnership
The French nuclear industry works closely with Rosatom, the Russian nuclear giant, at all levels of the production chain, from uranium mining to waste treatment, and from the construction of power plants to their operation [3].
Rosatom is a long-standing privileged partner of the French nuclear industry. Nuclear cooperation between France and the Russian Federation is governed by an intergovernmental agreement dating from 1996. Since then, numerous agreements and partnerships have been signed between manufacturers in both countries. France brought Rosatom into the European market in 1971. At the time, Tenex, a Rosatom subsidiary, had obtained its first contract to supply enriched uranium with the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). This contract was followed by new contracts to provide enrichment services with other Western European countries.
While Rosatom should be sanctioned, it is in the process of start of construction of two new nuclear reactors in Europe, with the help of the European nuclear consortium composed of the French company Framatome and its German technology partner Siemens Energy [4].
These two companies are the contractors selected by Rosatom for the Instrumentation & control I&C system at the Paks II nuclear plant in Hungary. The highly controversial Paks project is a partnership between Rosatom and the Hungarian government for the construction of two VVER 1200 reactors at the existing nuclear plant site, where four Soviet-supplied reactors continue to operate. In October 2019, the Framatome-Siemens consortium signed an agreement with Rosatom-subsidiary RASU JSC “to manufacture, deliver and commission automated process control systems” for the Paks reactor units [5] [6].
Framatome and Siemens Energy play a key role in Rosatom’s nuclear reactor program in Russia and abroad. Through the export of cutting-edge technologies, software, knowledge, and expertise—particularly in instrumentation and control (I&C) systems, which are the brain and central nervous system of a nuclear power plant—they have helped establish Rosatom’s position in the global nuclear trade. Rosatom is now the world’s largest supplier of nuclear power plants under construction. Through their strategic partnerships with Rosatom, Framatome and Siemens Energy directly support the economic and geopolitical interests of the Russian state (in addition to the economic interests of the French nuclear industries).
Another important factor that raises serious concerns over Framatome/Siemens Energy’s I&C trade with Rosatom is the dual use capability of their advanced hardware and software technology. Rosatom is an enormous nuclear enterprise spanning all areas of nuclear technology and materials, including Russia’s nuclear weapons program. Of particular relevance is Rosatom’s design, installation and maintenance of nuclear reactors within Russia’s ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) program.
It is also crucial that more light is shed on the end use of the dual-use-technology that Framatome and Siemens Energy have delivered to Rosatom: technology that could benefit Russia’s nuclear military program, including submarine reactor operations. Given that Rosatom is responsible for all areas of Russia’s nuclear program, from reactors to weapons and submarines, there can be no confidence in any Rosatom assurances of end use compliance. Thus, while Russia attacks the democratic state of Ukraine, wielding the threat of a nuclear strike, there is a very real risk that European companies have been providing Russia with nuclear technology that could be weaponized.
New alliances with Rosatom since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine
A new Franco-Russian nuclear company has been created since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, a joint-venture was created between Advanced Nuclear Fuel (ANF), a subsidiary of Framatome/EDF, and TVEL, a subsidiary of Rosatom. In order to circumvent the German ban relative to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the agreement sealing the creation of this joint-venture was signed in France.
Framatome/EDF has therefore joined forces with Russia to produce fuel for Russian-designed nuclear power plants located in Europe. A way of replacing one dependency with another. Approval for this collaboration at the Lingen site in Germany, operated by Framatome’s French subsidiary, is still pending from the German authorities.
Rosatom, the first company to attack and illegally occupy a foreign nuclear power plant in Ukraine, still avoids sanctions
That Rosatom, despite being directly involved in the armed invasion of a sovereign nation, has avoided any kind of censure from the European Union, highlights the genius of the tool created by Vladimir Poutine to establish geopolitical domination and economic dependence on many countries. The nuclear octopus has a stranglehold on European countries that have Russian-designed nuclear power plants, and those, such as France, that have an economic interest in continuing trade with this nuclear power.
While the implementation of European sanctions on Russian fossil fuels has been progressing rapidly over the last months, those mentioned for the nuclear sector remain uncertain. However, the effects of dependence on Russian fossil fuels and nuclear power are comparable. In May 2022, Greenpeace reported that Russian energy firms Gazprom, Lukoil and Rosatom used lobbying connections reminiscent of nesting Russian dolls to influence the inclusion of fossil gas and nuclear energy in the EU taxonomy of sustainable investments [5].
For Anastasiya Shapochkina, Senior Lecturer in Geopolitics, “in addition to increasing Russia’s political influence within the EU, the construction of new nuclear power plants strengthens economic ties between the Russian supplier and European customer countries for decades to come, with an effect comparable to that of a gas pipeline. […] Nuclear power allows Moscow to help define Europe’s future energy mix, which may give it the opportunity to advance its agenda on other issues, particularly gas.” [6]
Stop fueling the war, stop reinforcing Russia’s influence on European energy policies
In order to end its dependence on Russian nuclear power and stop indirectly financing the war, as well as its collaboration with the criminal enterprise Rosatom, it is urgent that the European Union add the Russian nuclear giant to its sanctions list.
France should already, set an example. French companies should terminate their contracts with Rosatom, the company that, for the first time in the history of nuclear power, took control of a power plant that did not belong to it, participated in Occupation, Torture, and Nuclear Safety Breaches at the Zaporizhzhia NPP [7].
As Russia intensifies its attacks on Ukraine’s energy system with the aim to plunge the country into energy insecurity, as Russia continues to brandish the nuclear threat by seeking to restart the reactors at the Zaporizhzhia power plant [8], it is time to comprehensively sanction Russian fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
[1] Greenpeace, La Russie, plaque tournante de l’uranium, 2023
https://www.greenpeace.fr/rapport-la-russie-plaque-tournante-de-luranium/
[2] Greenpeace presse release, Trois ans d’occupation de la centrale nucléaire de Zaporijia : la France contribue toujours au chantage nucléaire russe, mars 2025 https://www.greenpeace.fr/espace-presse/trois-ans-doccupation-de-la-centrale-nucleaire-de-zaporijia-la-france-contribue-toujours-au-chantage-nucleaire-russe/
[3] [Décryptage] L’industrie nucléaire française, une alliée du régime de V. Poutine, mars 2022
[4] RUSSIA’S ATOMIC PARTNERS: FRAMATOME, SIEMENS ENERGY AND ROSATOM
How European companies are supporting a criminal Russian state nuclear company – and
why EU sanctions are needed to stop it, july 2023
https://www.greenpeace.de/publikationen/Rosatom_Report_G.pdf
[5] Greenpeace European unit, ‘Russian doll’ gas and nuclear lobbying threatens EU energy independence – new research, may 2022
[6] Anastasiya Shapochkina, “Plus de trois décennies après Tchernobyl, la Russie joue crânement la carte nucléaire”, The Conversation, 23 avril 2021
[7] Seizing Power: Rosatom’s Complicity in Occupation, Torture, and Nuclear Safety Breaches at the Zaporizhzhia NPP
https://truth-hounds.org/en/cases/seizing-power/
[8] Dangerous Russian game in ZNPP is ongoing: why the 10th power cut will not be the last
