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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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Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to reshape the global nuclear industry in ways that extend beyond the battlefield. Western governments are investing in uranium enrichment capacity to reduce dependence on Russian nuclear fuel, operators of Soviet-designed reactors are discovering that decades of technological ties to Rosatom cannot be severed overnight, and Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) remains caught in a conflict that increasingly threatens not only its present safety, but its long-term future.

These three developments dominate Bellona’s June Nuclear Digest, underscoring how nuclear security, energy policy and geopolitics have become increasingly entangled.

Urenco announced in June that it will launch a second major expansion of its uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, New Mexico, adding another 2.1 million separative work units (SWU) of annual capacity by 2036. The project is part of a broader effort to expand enrichment capacity across the United States and Europe as Western governments work to reduce their dependence on Russian fuel services.

Today, the Eunice facility remains the only commercial producer of low-enriched uranium in the United States. Washington is simultaneously investing in several domestic enrichment projects, but Bellona argues that rebuilding the country’s nuclear fuel supply chain will remain a lengthy process.

According to Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov, Urenco has quietly become indispensable to the American market. The company now supplies about 70 percent of U.S. demand for enriched uranium, with roughly 30 percent coming from its U.S. facility and up to 40 percent from its European plants. Imports from Urenco’s facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands accounted for 57 percent of U.S. enriched uranium imports in 2025—more than twice Russia’s 24 percent share. Even if Washington succeeds in building significant domestic enrichment capacity, Gorchakov concludes, the United States is likely to eliminate Russian supplies “primarily thanks to Urenco.”

The announcement illustrates that reducing reliance on Rosatom is no longer simply a question of finding alternative suppliers. It requires rebuilding industrial capabilities that much of the West allowed to atrophy over several decades.

Developments in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Armenia demonstrate that moving away from Russian nuclear technology is proving far more complicated than replacing fuel contracts.

In Bulgaria, the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant once again received exemptions from European sanctions allowing continued imports of certain Russian equipment because key components of its Soviet-designed systems still lack suitable alternatives. At the same time, Czech and Ukrainian firms continue modernizing reactor control systems that should eventually enable further diversification.

Slovakia’s fourth Mochovce reactor has now been loaded with fuel, but despite extensive Western participation in completing the project, the unit will initially continue operating on Russian fuel while Westinghouse and Framatome complete licensing of replacement fuel.

Armenia presents an even more politically sensitive case. While the European Union continues financing safety upgrades and alternative emergency systems at the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant, Moscow has openly criticized Yerevan for employing Western contractors without Russian coordination and has warned that doing so could jeopardize Rosatom’s safety guarantees. Taken together, Bellona’s Dmitry Gorchakov says, these cases demonstrate that dismantling decades of cooperation in the VVER reactor sector is proceeding “very unevenly and not without difficulties.” Bulgaria still requires repeated sanctions exemptions because some equipment “cannot be qualitatively produced by alternative suppliers,” while Slovakia’s transition to Western fuel is progressing “not as actively” as in countries such as Finland or the Czech Republic. Armenia, meanwhile, reveals that diversification has become more than a technical issue. Russia’s sharp reaction to Western involvement shows that, for Moscow, the issue is “not simply a technical or economic question, but a question of losing political influence in an important region.”

Military threats around the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant continued throughout June. The station remained dependent on a single backup transmission line after its main external power connection stayed out of service, forcing four separate switches to emergency diesel generators during the month. Drone activity repeatedly disrupted repair work, while IAEA inspectors continued to face restrictions on access to important areas of the site.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, a drone strike damaged a building at the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, only a short distance from stored spent nuclear fuel. Although no radioactive materials were released, the incident underscored the vulnerability of civilian nuclear infrastructure far beyond Zaporizhzhia itself.

For Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin, however, the central question is no longer simply whether Zaporizhzhia can avoid a nuclear accident while the war continues. Rather, he argues that the station is likely to be “destroyed to such an extent” that, regardless of who ultimately controls it, operating Europe’s largest nuclear power plant will become “impossible without extensive reconstruction.” The greatest danger, he warns, remains the possibility that damage to nuclear facilities or radioactive materials could result in radioactive releases beyond their protective barriers.

The attack near the spent fuel storage facility also illustrates a broader lesson. As Nikitin observes, if “tomorrow a stray shot or strike” were to hit an inadequately protected spent fuel storage installation, the consequences “could be very real and extremely severe” for both people and the environment. The war has demonstrated that even nuclear facilities far from the front cannot be assumed to be immune from attack.

More than four years after Russia seized Zaporizhzhia, Bellona argues that the challenge is no longer limited to preventing a nuclear disaster in the present. Increasingly, it is about whether Europe’s largest nuclear power station—and Ukraine’s broader civilian nuclear infrastructure—will emerge from the war in a condition that allows them to operate safely again.

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Despite sweeping Western sanctions, Russia’s ambitions in the Arctic continue to advance—albeit in increasingly different ways. Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project appears to have found a workable, if limited, export model centered almost entirely on China, while Rosneft is pressing ahead with its massive Vostok Oil development despite mounting questions over whether its ambitious production targets can ever be realized.

These two stories dominate Bellona’s June Arctic Digest, highlighting both the resilience—and the growing constraints—of Russia’s Arctic energy strategy.

After months of uncertainty, Arctic LNG 2 has begun to establish something resembling a stable export system. During June, five LNG cargoes left the sanctioned plant. Most were transferred to the floating storage facility Saam FSU near Murmansk, while another was shipped east along the Northern Sea Route aboard the icebreaking LNG carrier Christophe de Margerie to the Koryak FSU off Kamchatka. Another tanker, the recently reflagged Arctic Express, also joined the growing fleet moving cargo from the project.

Bellona notes that shipping activity along the Northern Sea Route now differs markedly from last year. Rather than sporadic shipments, Arctic LNG 2 is conducting regular deliveries to China, which has effectively become the project’s sole customer. Export volumes remain constrained primarily by the limited number of available Arc7 icebreaking LNG carriers, though Bellona expects that as Arctic sea ice retreats later this summer, lower ice-class vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet may also begin transporting cargoes eastward.

Russia also marked the long-delayed commissioning of the Konstantin Posyet, only the second Arc7 LNG carrier completed at the Zvezda shipyard. Built more than two years behind schedule, the vessel is expected to enter long-term service with Arctic LNG 2. But Bellona cautions that the achievement masks deeper problems. The Konstantin Posyet is likely the last vessel whose critical foreign components reached Russia before sanctions took effect. Although three additional hulls remain under construction, Bellona says the chances they will be completed on schedule are “unlikely,” as France’s membrane containment systems were installed only on the first two ships, while Russia’s purported domestic replacement technology remains largely unproven and may itself rely heavily on Chinese expertise.

China’s role continues to deepen. Reuters reported that PipeChina is preparing to open a second LNG import terminal at Longkou before October, adding another 5 million tonnes of annual import capacity dedicated to Arctic LNG 2. The company already operates the Beihai terminal, currently the only Chinese facility receiving LNG from the project. Since entering service, Beihai has handled 41 cargoes totaling 2.6 million tonnes.

For Bellona, China’s growing involvement sends a broader signal. Despite Western sanctions, “Russia has managed to find buyers in China and is gradually finding LNG carriers for exports.” The participation of Chinese state-owned companies in both purchasing LNG and operating import terminals suggests Beijing expects “no secondary sanctions,” while discounted Russian gas—sold at an estimated 30 to 40 percent below market prices—has only strengthened China’s incentive to deepen the relationship. At the same time, Bellona argues that because China has become Arctic LNG 2’s only customer, demand alone will not justify Russia’s plans for additional Arctic LNG plants.

Elsewhere in the Russian Arctic, Rosneft continues pushing ahead with Vostok Oil, its flagship effort to transform northern Krasnoyarsk into what CEO Igor Sechin has called a world-class oil production cluster.

The company’s first major milestone is now approaching. According to Sechin, the initial phase of the Bukhta Sever oil terminal is scheduled to begin operating in September. The terminal will initially handle 28.4 million tonnes of oil annually and ultimately serve as the export hub for Vostok Oil’s planned production.

Those ambitions remain enormous. Russia’s official development strategy envisions Vostok Oil reaching 100 million tonnes of annual production by 2030—more than twice the current freight volume moving along the Northern Sea Route. Yet the project is still in its early stages. Trial production has begun only at one section of the Payakha field, and Rosneft has yet to indicate whether output there will be sufficient to support even the terminal’s initial operating capacity.

Beyond the engineering challenge lies a broader environmental one. As Bellona notes, the vast network of pipelines, terminals and supporting infrastructure required by Vostok Oil is being built across one of the Arctic’s most fragile tundra ecosystems. Whether the project ultimately fulfills Rosneft’s production ambitions—or falls short of them—it is already reshaping one of the world’s most environmentally sensitive regions.

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