While Europe suffers from energy shortages and cost blowouts due to Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine, the Foreign Minister of Russia is teasing allies about the US continuing to purchase Russian uranium.
The US imports about 12% of enriched uranium from Russia’s Rosatom, and is so reliant on enriched Russian uranium, that the White House refuses to sanction it.
Rosatom became a well-known name in the US when a 2010 Obama Administration deal allowed Rosatom to acquire a controlling stake in Uranium One, a Canadian-based company in a scandal that engulfed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and again during her 2016 Presidential run.
Despite hundreds of millions being sent to the Russian government for uranium, the issue is being largely ignored by Washington.
According to TASS news agency, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the United States is “bankrupting” its European allies with sanctions while continuing to purchase uranium and other key minerals from Russia,
The comments by Lavrov could spark more fury in the US Congress, as members try to pass legislation to ban Russian uranium imports into the United States.
“Washington is essentially ruining its European vassals and allowing its military-industrial complex to earn money,” Lavrov said.
“It imposed and continues to impose expensive American liquefied natural gas on the European Union, and with its selfish laws forces European companies to transfer enterprises overseas to where base costs are lower. While forcing the EU to abandon everything Russian, Washington continues to buy uranium and other critical materials from Russia,” he said.
The comments could put pressure on the Biden Administration to move faster to stop importing Russian uranium.
In May, the US House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to send legislation banning imports of Russian uranium.
However, the legislation appears to be stuck in the US Congress.
The US is “dangerously reliant upon Russia’s supply of nuclear fuels for our existing nuclear power plant fleet,” said committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington state Republican, in a statement May 24. The affirmative vote “sends a strong signal to the market that will help restore American nuclear leadership and fuel infrastructure,” said Rodgers, who sponsored the bill.
The bill also watered down the ability to immediately cut off Russian-enriched uranium, allowing the US Energy Department to waive the bill until at least 2027.
According to The New York Times, American companies are paying around $1 billion a year to Russia’s state-owned nuclear agency to buy the fuel that generates more than half of the United States’ emissions-free energy.
“The United States and Europe have largely stopped buying Russian fossil fuels as punishment for the Ukraine invasion. But building a new enriched uranium supply chain will take years — and significantly more government funding than currently allocated,” The Times wrote.
