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Nearly four and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, July offered fresh evidence of how difficult it remains to disentangle Russia from the Western nuclear industry. Germany approved production of fuel for Russian-designed reactors using Russian technology, while new data from Europe and the United States showed that Rosatom retains a substantial share of Western uranium conversion and enrichment markets.

Meanwhile, at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the killing of the station’s Russian-appointed chief engineer underscored a different consequence of the war: the continuing danger faced by those working at Europe’s largest nuclear power station—

On July 15, Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev said a drone strike on a service vehicle between the Zaporizhzhia plant and the neighboring city of Enerhodar had killed the station’s Russian-appointed chief engineer, Alexander Yakovlev, and his driver. Russia blamed Ukraine, while Kyiv denied responsibility and said there was no independent confirmation of Moscow’s account.

The incident quickly became the subject of competing claims. A Telegram channel subsequently alleged that Yakovlev had opposed allowing Russian personnel access to Westinghouse nuclear fuel stored at the plant and suggested that a dispute over that access might have contributed to his death. The claim has not been independently established.

Bellona nuclear expert Alexander Nikitin cautions against drawing conclusions from such speculation.

“Both sides (Russia and Ukraine) predictably accused each other of the killing,” Nikitin writes. “Who killed one of the several hundred people who die every day in Ukraine, and what the specific reason for this killing was, will never be established. The reason could have been anything, including domestic, financial or other motives, so there is no point in guessing or trying to investigate it. The war will write everything off.”

For Nikitin, Yakovlev’s death instead illustrates the larger danger created by the continued militarization of the plant and surrounding area. “Not only facilities are being destroyed, but people are also being killed, including personnel working at ZNPP and their families living in Enerhodar,” he writes.

Germany, meanwhile, has approved a controversial plan that will preserve another form of Russian involvement in Europe’s nuclear industry.

On July 22, authorities in Lower Saxony approved an application by Advanced Nuclear Fuels, a subsidiary of France’s Framatome, to expand its Lingen plant to manufacture hexagonal fuel assemblies for Russian-designed VVER reactors.

The fuel will be manufactured under Russian licenses and using Russian technology through cooperation with Rosatom’s fuel subsidiary TVEL. The decision came despite objections from some 11,000 people and concerns about espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks and Russian access to critical German infrastructure. Authorities imposed safeguards, including restrictions on access by Rosatom and TVEL personnel and security inspections of Russian equipment.

Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov calls the decision “rather strange” and warns that it undermines efforts to reduce European dependence on Russia.

“Unfortunately, this shows the absence of a single clear policy and principles regarding contacts with official Russian structures, both within Germany itself and within the EU,” Gorchakov writes.

More importantly, he argues, allowing Framatome to meet its VVER fuel commitments with Rosatom’s involvement “may slow the development of its own French VVER fuel independent of Rosatom and prolong Rosatom’s dependence and influence on this market in Europe.”

“Bellona does not approve of this decision by the German authorities or of this cooperation between Framatome and Rosatom,” Gorchakov concludes.

New figures published in July show why severing those ties remains difficult.

The Euratom Supply Agency reported that European suppliers significantly expanded uranium enrichment services in 2025, increasing their share of the EU market from 63.9% to 72.9%. The volume of Russian enrichment services also increased by 11.6% in physical terms. However, their share of the total volume of European orders declined by 22.55% compared with 23.55% a year earlier and 37% in 2023. Russia supplied nearly 16% of the EU’s natural uranium and 24.4% of its conversion services.

The situation is likewise complicated in the United States. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Russia remained the largest single source of enrichment services purchased by American nuclear operators in 2025, providing 3.284 million SWU — about 26% of the total. That was more than the share supplied by U.S. enrichment capacity itself.

“The published statistics in the EU and the US show the continuing dependence of Western nuclear power plant operators and nuclear fuel cycle enterprises on Russian supplies of uranium and its conversion and enrichment services,” Gorchakov says.

“Despite the existence of major European competitors to Rosatom and technical alternatives, up to 20–25% of nuclear materials and nuclear fuel cycle services in European and US markets still originate in Russia.”

For Gorchakov, market forces alone are unlikely to break that dependence. “Only official restrictions and sanctions can break this trend,” he writes, arguing that firm limits would both force reductions in Russian purchases and give Western suppliers confidence that investments in new capacity will pay off.

Taken together, the developments underline a contradiction that has persisted since the beginning of the war. Russia’s occupation of Zaporizhzhia has created unprecedented nuclear safety risks in Ukraine, yet Rosatom remains deeply embedded in nuclear supply chains in the countries supporting Kyiv. Europe and the United States are developing alternatives, but July’s figures — and Germany’s decision in Lingen — suggest that breaking those ties will require political decisions as much as new technology and production capacity.

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Just days after Egyptian nuclear authorities reportedly accused Rosatom of construction defects, poor management and violations of “nuclear safety culture” at the El Dabaa nuclear power plant, Cairo is considering an unusual response: buying two more Russian reactors. 

Egyptian Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat met Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev in Russia this week to discuss progress at El Dabaa, a four-reactor nuclear station under construction on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The talks also covered a second phase that could add two more VVER-1200 reactors. 

That would expand the plant from 4.8 to 7.2 gigawatts and deepen a nuclear relationship with Moscow that would likely to last decades. 

The timing is curious. Earlier this month, POLITICO reported that a confidential June 4 letter from Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority to Rosatom detailed a series of construction and management problems at El Dabaa. 

According to the report, Egyptian officials cited defects in foundation slabs at reactor Units 1, 2 and 3, voids behind metal cladding at Unit 4 and problems with the cylindrical wall of its reactor building. The letter also reportedly accused Rosatom personnel of “deliberate negligence” and violations of nuclear safety culture, including shortcomings in workplace safety and site security. 

Separate internal Rosatom documents obtained by POLITICO pointed to construction-quality and management problems of their own. One assessment reportedly warned that completion of El Dabaa’s first reactor could slip by as much as 18 months, from September 2028 to March 2030. 

Egyptian authorities have strongly rejected suggestions that the disclosures show El Dabaa is unsafe. 

The Nuclear Power Plants Authority called POLITICO’s report “inaccurate and unbalanced”  saying that construction non-conformities are routinely identified and corrected during a project of El Dabaa’s scale. Egypt’s nuclear regulator likewise said the plant is being built according to internationally recognized nuclear safety and security standards and stressed that construction remains under continuous inspection. 

Egyptian officials have also pointed to an International Atomic Energy Agency review mission in June, which concluded that Egypt has a comprehensive regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety, while also recommending further improvements to legislation, licensing and radioactive-waste policy. 

However, it’s important to bear in mind that the El Dabaa site is still under construction. El Dabaa and contains no nuclear fuel. The reported defects thus do not constitute a radiological hazard—nor does the purported existence of construction problems necessarily demonstrate that the finished reactors will be unsafe. 

But the source of the complaints makes them hard to dismiss. If authentic, the June letter reported by POLITICO did not come from an environmental organization or a Russian nuclear critic. It came from within the Egyptian state authority overseeing the project. 

“There is no question that shortcomings and defects arise during construction. Normally, these problems are resolved between the customer and the contractor,” said Alexander Nikitin, a nuclear expert with Bellona. “What is unusual in this case is that complaints about shortcomings and defects have spilled into public discussion. That may indicate that the customer and the contractor were unable to resolve these problems between themselves.” 

Dmitry Gorchakov, another of Bellona’s nuclear experts, said that what’s important about the leaked complaints is that they are addressed.  

“It is difficult to speculate about how or why this correspondence reached journalists. It could have been a deliberate leak intended to achieve certain political goals, or it could simply have been accidental: the project is enormous, and breaches of confidentiality can occur as well,” he said. “Of course, the existence of these problems is cause for concern — although we are not yet talking about radiological risks. But it would be considerably more worrying if the problems were not corrected, or if their existence were simply denied altogether.” 

Whatever tensions exist behind the scenes, they do not appear to be weakening Egypt’s commitment to Russian nuclear technology. Likhachev said this week that talks are underway on El Dabaa Units 5 and 6, including how the additional reactors might be financed. 

Cairo is also discussing possible cooperation with Rosatom on small modular reactors for industrial facilities, remote regions and other applications. 

That apparent contradiction points to one of Rosatom’s greatest advantages abroad: it sells much more than just the nuclear reactors. 

Under the existing El Dabaa agreements, Russia is financing much of the project while Rosatom companies are building the plant, supplying nuclear fuel for its operating lifetime, helping train Egyptian personnel, assisting with operation and maintenance during its first decade and providing equipment for storing spent nuclear fuel. 

That creates a relationship that can continue long after construction crews leave the site, and those long relationships are exactly the point, Bellona’s experts explained. 

“When you sign contracts covering everything on the list, you become deeply dependent on the supplier—and getting out of that relationship is extremely expensive,” as countries like Ukraine and Finland have found, Nikitin said. 

Gorchakov explained that this model is attractive for customers that are new to nuclear power, or that aren’t in a position to finance the entire project themselves—and who don’t particularly care about the political consequences of cozying up to Rosatom.  

“The trade-off is political and technological dependence,“ he said. “Good relations with Russia and attractive financing terms may simply outweigh considerations of independence.” 

For Moscow, those ties have only become more valuable since the invasion of Ukraine. While sanctions have pushed Russia out of many Western markets, Rosatom continues to build reactors abroad and preserve technological, commercial and political relationships that can stretch across generations. 

The controversy at El Dabaa has thus attracted attention far beyond Egypt. Ukraine cited the reported problems in a renewed call for European Union sanctions against Rosatom, with Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha arguing that the allegations provided further evidence that the Russian nuclear corporation was not a reliable international partner. 

The allegations also resonate inside the EU. Rosatom is building two VVER-1200 reactors at Hungary’s Paks II nuclear plant—the same reactor model under construction at El Dabaa. 

“The concerns are understandable,” said Gorchakov. “At the same time, in Hungary— especially following the change of government—the customer and its regulators are far more experienced, rigorous and demanding than their counterparts in Egypt, as are the EU institutions overseeing the project. That is evident from the lengthy delays and the difficulties involved in securing the necessary approvals. In Egypt, things have been much quieter, and this leak is essentially the first major ‘scandal’ associated with the project.” 

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For years, the Akademik Lomonosov looked like one of the nuclear industry’s more eccentric experiments: two reactors mounted on a barge and towed thousands of kilometers to Pevek, a tiny Russian port above the Arctic Circle.

But next week, representatives of the nuclear and maritime industries will gather in Washington to discuss whether something resembling Russia’s experiment could become considerably more commonplace.

On August 26 and 27, the International Atomic Energy Agency will formally launch ATLAS — Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea — an initiative aimed at developing an international bureaucratic framework for civilian nuclear technologies at sea. The project encompasses both floating nuclear power plants and nuclear-powered commercial ships, bringing together two industries whose regulatory worlds have historically not much intersected.

The event is significantly timed. After decades on the fringes of the nuclear industry, maritime reactors are attracting new interest as small modular reactor developers search for markets and the shipping industry looks for ways to decarbonize.

The United States is already preparing. In July, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Marine Minerals Administration signed an agreement establishing how the agencies would divide responsibility if developers propose nuclear projects on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. No such commercial projects have yet been proposed, but the government is creating a regulatory pathway before they arrive. The NRC is separately developing guidance for licensing floating plants and nuclear propulsion systems.

None of this is entirely theoretical. Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov has been supplying electricity from Pevek since 2019 and entered commercial operation in 2020. Its two KLT-40S reactors provide roughly 70 megawatts of generating capacity, making it the world’s only operating commercial floating nuclear power station.

Bellona has followed—and criticized—the project since construction began in 2006, raising questions about its economics, radioactive waste, spent fuel, maritime accidents and the risks inherent in moving nuclear materials through remote Arctic waters. The plant also became an illustration of nuclear megaproject delays: construction ultimately took 13 years rather than the four originally envisioned.

But Rosatom has not abandoned the concept. Quite the opposite.

The Russian state nuclear corporation is now trying to turn the Lomonosov experiment into a repeatable model. Four newer floating power units equipped with RITM-200S reactors are planned to supply the remote Baimskaya mining project in Chukotka. In May, Rosatom announced completion of the first reactor unit for the project.

That project also demonstrates why floating nuclear power may prove considerably more complicated than simply putting a small reactor on a barge.

Russian shipyards lacked the capacity to build the first two hulls on the required schedule, forcing Rosatom to outsource them to China’s Wison shipyard. The first Chinese-built hull arrived at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg this spring, where its Russian reactors and turbines are to be installed.

In other words, floating nuclear plants promise factory-style construction, but Russia’s experience suggests that they still require an elaborate international industrial supply chain.

The renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power at sea also arrives at an unsettling moment for international nuclear security. Recent wars have challenged a longstanding assumption underlying civilian nuclear power—that reactors and other nuclear facilities remain insulated from military conflict.

Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has turned Europe’s largest nuclear station into part of an active war zone, repeatedly exposing the site to explosions, drone activity and losses of external power. In February 2025, a drone struck and badly damaged the New Safe Confinement protecting the remains of the destroyed Chernobyl reactor. And this year, projectiles struck the grounds of Iran’s operating Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant during the war there, though no reactor damage or radioactive release was reported.

None of these incidents produced a major radiological accident. But together they raise a question that becomes especially important as nuclear power moves offshore: Does mobility make a reactor safer in wartime—or simply create new ways for it to become vulnerable?

A floating plant could theoretically be moved away from a threatened area, something impossible for a conventional reactor. But a reactor moored in a harbor or supplying an isolated military, mining or industrial installation could also become a conspicuous strategic target. Its electrical connections, cooling systems, moorings and supporting infrastructure may be more exposed than those of a heavily protected land-based plant. And a nuclear-powered commercial ship introduces another problem entirely: unlike Zaporizhzhia or Bushehr, it could actually sail into or through a conflict zone.

The technical problems with floating nuclear plants may be easier to solve than the legal ones. Nuclear regulation has traditionally assumed that a reactor stays put. Maritime law, by contrast, is built around vessels that cross borders and operate under different flag, coastal and port-state jurisdictions. A floating reactor forces those systems together.

Who licenses a reactor built in one country, registered in another and moored in a third? Who takes responsibility for its nuclear waste and spent fuel? Which country is responsible for safeguards if the plant moves? What happens when a nuclear-powered ship enters a foreign port—or when a floating reactor must be evacuated because of war or extreme weather?

The IAEA has identified refueling, maintenance, remote operation, safeguards, security and international regulatory harmonization among the issues that must be resolved. Meanwhile, the International Maritime Organization is revising its own 1981 safety code for nuclear merchant ships, with adoption of a new code currently envisioned for 2030.

The appeal nevertheless seems obvious. Floating plants could be assembled in specialized shipyards rather than constructed individually at remote sites, then delivered to isolated communities, mines, islands or industrial projects whose grids cannot support conventional gigawatt-scale reactors. When their work is finished, they could theoretically be removed.

That is the vision ATLAS will begin trying to turn into a workable international system next week.

Russia, meanwhile, has already spent nearly two decades discovering what happens when that idea encounters reality. Its experience suggests floating nuclear power can work—to a point. Whether it can be made economical, replicable and safe enough to operate around the world is a much larger question—and one the rest of the nuclear industry is suddenly eager to answer.

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