Europe still needs Russia to keep the lights on

Henry Johnston

The EU wants to cut Moscow out of its nuclear sector, but its reactors remain tied to Russian fuel, technology, and capacity

Earlier this week, fuel loading began at the final unit of Slovakia’s Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant. This is the final step before the commercial launch later this summer. The project — construction for which was launched by the Soviet union back in 1987, in a world long vanished — will propel Slovakia to the leadership position for nuclear power in the EU.

But the step, as positive as it may seem for Europe’s beleaguered energy sector, is not without an entirely predictable controversy. The nuclear fuel for the new reactor will be supplied solely by TVEL Fuel Company, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear company Rosatom.

This comes as the European Commission has proposed ending dependence on Russian nuclear fuel in the early 2030s at the latest — part of a plan to decouple from Russian energy entirely.

Uranium products are necessary for the operation of the nuclear power reactors that generate nearly one quarter of electricity in the European Union. Nuclear power, meanwhile, is expected to only grow in the coming years.

Russia is a huge player in the global nuclear industry. One in four nuclear reactors worldwide is connected to Russia. It accounts for an estimated 45 percent of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity, 20 percent of conversion capacity, and 10 percent of nuclear fuel fabrication capacity.

The EU currently imports just under a quarter of its nuclear fuel from Russia, which through Rosatom controls a significant share of the global nuclear fuel supply chain. Europe is dependent on Russia at multiple stages in the process.

RT sheds light on how this process actually works and examines the question of just how feasible it will be for the EU to sever yet another energy bond with Russia.

The uranium fuel cycle: Why ‘nuclear fuel’ is not one thing

Discussions of Europe’s dependence on Russian nuclear fuel often treat what is in fact a series of distinct industrial processes as a single category. The process is as follows: Uranium is mined, converted to a gas, enriched, and then manufactured into what are called fuel assemblies — the final product that actually goes in the reactor. It is these fuel assemblies that are capable of sustaining a nuclear fission reaction.

The EU has dependencies on Russia that cover every step of the uranium fuel cycle.

Raw uranium

Uranium is mined in many countries and is widely distributed around the world. However, Europe is fully dependent on imported uranium. Although the origins of uranium imported into the EU are relatively diversified, around 40 percent of EU uranium imports still came from countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States — primarily Kazakhstan (25 percent) and Russia (15 percent).

Replacing the Russian supply of uranium ore would not necessarily pose a significant challenge for the EU given that Russia provides only a small share of global primary supply.

The nuclear fuel cycle is how nuclear fuel is extracted, processed, used, and disposed of.

Conversion is the process of transforming uranium into uranium hexafluoride, the chemical form required for enrichment.

The market for conversion services is concentrated, with only a handful of major providers globally. Russia holds a strong position in this segment. The EU meets about 20 percent of its needs for conversion services domestically. Conversion services sourced from Russia account for a similar share, although this figure has declined somewhat in recent years.

Russian conversion services have historically been cheaper than Western alternatives. Expanding capacity is a stated goal for Europe, but conversion is a highly specialized industrial activity requiring dedicated facilities and significant capital investment. It cannot be done quickly.

Enrichment

Natural uranium, as found in the Earth’s crust, exists primarily as a mixture of two main isotopes: U238 and U235. The former is vastly more abundant, but it is U235 that actually sustains a controlled nuclear chain reaction that releases massive amounts of energy.

The problem is that U235 comprises only about 0,7 percent of mined uranium, whereas most reactors for electricity production require fuel where the share of U235 is around 3–5 percent. The process of raising the concentration is called enrichment.

Enrichment is done through centrifuges, which are ultra-fast spinning tubes that exploit the fact that U238 is slightly heavier than U235. When spun thousands of times, the heavier isotope shifts outward very slightly more than the lighter one.

This process is repeated in long cascades of machines until the desired concentration is achieved.

Enrichment capacity is where the bottleneck tends to be. Only a small number of countries can do enrichment at industrial scale, and even fewer can do it cheaply and consistently. Russia can do both.

European utilities – including operators of Western-designed reactors – purchase Russian enrichment because it is available, competitive, and reliable. Russian-enriched uranium is sometimes contracted even for non-Russian reactors.

This is possible because it makes no difference to the reactors where the enriched uranium comes from. The fuel simply needs to meet the required specifications.

Replacing Russian capacity would require expansion of existing infrastructure, as well as new projects currently under consideration in Europe.

Russian enriched uranium exports to the EU rose sharply in early 2026, reaching €163.5 million (US$185,9 million) in the period from January to the end of April, compared with €20.7 million in the same period the previous year, according to Eurostat data released in June.

However, Euratom Supply Agency figures show that while Russian-origin deliveries increased in absolute terms, their share dropped slightly to 22.6 percent from 23.6 percent, while EU-origin enrichment deliveries increased their share to 72.9 percent from 64 percent.

Because nuclear-fuel consignments are large and relatively infrequent, a single delivery or spot purchase can skew short-term comparisons. Nevertheless, it is widely acknowledged that Russia will remain an important supplier for the time being.

Unlike enrichment, fuel assemblies – the fuel rods actually loaded into the reactor – are a highly specialized product tailored to specific types of reactors. This is also the EU’s most acute and locked-in dependency. Currently, 101 nuclear reactors are operating in the bloc, of which 19 are Russian-designed pressurized water reactors (VVER) units. Russia is the primary supplier for VVER reactor types across the world, including for the ones in Europe.

There are two types of Russian-made reactors: the older VVER-440, developed during the 1960s and 1970s by the Soviet Union, and the newer VVER-1000. The VVER-440 has electrical output of roughly 440 MW per reactor (hence the name) and uses a distinctive hexagonal fuel assembly. There are still VVER-440s operating in Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Finland.

The VVER-1000 is the later generation. Developed in the late Soviet period, the VVER-1000 is larger and more efficient. It also uses hexagonal fuel, but the assemblies are not interchangeable with those of the VVER-440. The VVER-1000 is by far the most common Russian reactor design internationally.

The distinction matters because diversification has progressed at different speeds. Bringing to market alternate fuel assemblies for the VVER-440 has proven a slower process than for the VVER-1000, not least because there are fewer VVER-440 reactors still operating, making the commercial case for developing alternative fuel less attractive.

The North American company Westinghouse began developing alternative fuel for the VVER-1000 years ago but for the VVER-440 only more recently. It has developed alternative fuel designs and signed contracts with several European operators, but production capacity remains insufficient to meet full regional demand if Russian supplies were suddenly cut off.

As discussed above, fuel supply alternatives for this type of reactor are extremely limited and production capacity is constrained. Although countries tend to keep stockpiles of nuclear fuel to provide a buffer, any longer-term halt in Russian fuel supplies could thus risk serious electricity shortages across the region.

The other Western company involved in supplying VVER fuel is France’s Framatome. But it is not yet ready to produce entirely indigenous VVER fuel and is instead doing so under a license from TVEL. – rt.com