US Shoots Itself in Foot With 'Politically-Motivated' Ban on Russian Uranium Imports

Since the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, the US government displayed willingness to use sanctions as a tool of economic warfare against Moscow, even if these very sanctions ended up hurting the American economy.

The US House of Representatives passed a ban on imports of uranium from Russia ion Monday, in what appears to be yet another attempt to damage the Russian economy.

US lawmakers made this move even as their country has become increasingly reliant on the relatively cheap supply of Russian uranium, which is probably why the bill in question, the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, would also authorize the US Energy Secretary to issue a waiver to the ban if no other sources of uranium are available.

Commenting on this development, a member of the public council of Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear corporation, Valeriy Menshikov, pointed out that nuclear power plants in the US are managed by private companies and the new uranium imports ban may end up pitting these business enterprises against the people responsible for this “political decision.”

“Russia has always been a constant in all these contractual commitments on enriched uranium supply, and has never violated a single article of these contractual commitments,” he remarked. “To withdraw from such an arrangement, which has worked for decades, is in my opinion a purely political decision that can be summed up as ‘we’ll do it even if it makes things worse for ourselves’.”

According to Menshikov, if the prohibitive legislation does come into effect, the United States would not only have to find alternative sources of uranium, but also to come up with a new uranium enrichment scheme since, aside from Russia, only France has the necessary technological expertise.

The problem, Menshikov argued, is that France has sizeable nuclear power generation of its own and it is unclear whether Paris has enough uranium enrichment capabilities to satisfy both the demand of French nuclear power plants and any requests for enriched uranium from the United States.

All in all, any alternative source of enriched uranium would inevitably be much more expensive for the United States than importing enriched uranium from Russia, he added, comparing the situation to the current predicament of Europe, which is forced to buy more expensive US liquefied natural gas after becoming cut off from the cheaper Russian natural gas.