LONDON — The global nuclear power resurgence was supposed to trade the unpredictability of Middle Eastern oil for the stability of worldwide uranium reserves. But Russian President Vladimir Putin may have other plans.
A recent report from the London-based Center for Strategic Advantage warns that Russia’s position in uranium mining is substantially greater than production figures suggest and could expand sharply over the next 15 years — to as much as 36% of global uranium resources by 2040.
“Russia’s influence over uranium supply has been greatly underestimated. The World Nuclear Association portrays Russia as a minor uranium producer, its domestic mines contributing 4.5% of global output in 2024. Taking Russia’s overseas uranium mines into account, however, the figure is five times that amount,” according to the Center for Strategic Advantage’s report, Mining for Influence.
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Uranium mines — and who controls them — have become a huge priority for the United States and other growing economies after years of war in Ukraine and months of conflict in the Middle East have ratcheted up concerns over the global oil supply.
Governments in the U.S., Asia and Europe, facing skyrocketing electricity demand, increasingly view modernized, state-of-the-art nuclear power plants as stable, even environmentally friendly, alternatives to oil.
Mr. Putin’s Russia has about 8% of the world’s uranium reserves and produces about 8% of the world’s nuclear power. Yet Russia has been quietly extending its control of global uranium reserves beyond its borders, according to the CSA report.
The Trump administration also prioritized nuclear power, but the U.S. has turned its focus inward, pushing to rebuild domestic uranium production and the industrial capacity needed to convert it, and supporting new uranium mining activity.
American uranium concentrate production is attempting to rise to meet the challenge. Domestic production more than tripled in 2025 to 2.1 million pounds of U3O8, commonly known as yellowcake, its highest level since 2017, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Congress banned imports of Russian low-enriched uranium in 2024 as part of the sanctions imposed after Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine. In response, Mr. Putin explicitly threatened retaliatory restrictions on vital exports such as uranium.
“Supplies of a number of goods to us are limited — maybe we should also think about certain restrictions? “Uranium, titanium, nickel,” he said in televised 2024 remarks.
Still, the U.S. is so dependent on Russia’s uranium that the sanctions law explicitly provided an escape hatch.
The Department of Energy issues waivers when alternative supplies are unavailable, or imports are deemed in the national interest. Those waivers can continue until Jan. 1, 2028.
The provision is a striking acknowledgment that Russian participation in the civilian nuclear fuel market cannot simply be sanctioned away. Russia accounts for roughly 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity, according to the Department of Energy.
“While Western countries gradually allowed parts of their nuclear fuel supply chain to decline, Russia continued to develop its capabilities,” said Alexy Naumov, a Russian policy analyst based in Moscow. “It should come as no surprise that these investments have now translated into a significant competitive advantage.”
At first glance, Russia’s position in uranium mining appears far less imposing.
Kazakhstan dominates global production, while Canada and Namibia are also major suppliers. Russia accounted for only about 4.5% of global uranium mined in 2024.
Still, the Center for Strategic Advantage argues that focusing solely on uranium mined within Russia dramatically understates Moscow’s reach. The institute suggests that projects involving existing and committed Russian-controlled mines could account for roughly one-third of global production by 2040.
“We must be cautious in equating Russian participation in uranium mining projects abroad with direct geopolitical control,” Mr. Naumov said. “Kazakhstan, Niger and other uranium-producing projects have their own interests and are perfectly capable of pursuing independent policies. … To be brutally honest, turning this commercial interdependence into another geopolitical battleground may prove considerably more expensive for Western consumers than Russia itself.”
Recent events in Niger illustrate how quickly political control over uranium can shift and suggest the difficulties in foreign supply chains. After a July 2023 coup, Niger’s military government progressively stripped French nuclear group Orano of control over its uranium operations and moved to take control of the material produced through those operations.
The uranium concentrate is not yet reactor fuel. It must still pass through conversion, enrichment and fabrication before it can be loaded into a civilian reactor. But the dispute demonstrated how political upheaval in a uranium-producing country can suddenly reshape the front end of the nuclear supply chain.
That vulnerability sharpened further in late August.
A mutiny by elements of Niger’s military climaxed in fighting around the military base at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey. Government forces eventually regained control, with Russian Africa Corps personnel assisting loyalist forces, according to reports of the fighting.
Some 1,150 tons of disputed yellowcake uranium, worth roughly $200 million, are believed to be stored at the airport.
An Orano representative who spoke to The Washington Times at the World Nuclear Symposium in London said the upheaval left the company with no clarity on the fate of the disputed yellowcake.
Washington, however, is not conceding Niger’s uranium deposits to Moscow.
The U.S. International Development Finance Corp. has approved up to $414 million in financing for Canadian miner Global Atomic’s Dasa uranium project in Niger, potentially giving an American-backed project a major new foothold in a country that has simultaneously deepened its security relationship with Russia.
The decision underscores the strategic importance Washington now places on alternative uranium supplies outside Russia.
“When people talk about Russian dominance in uranium, they’re looking in the wrong place,” said Paul Coyer, President of the Coyer Group LLC and a senior adviser to mineral interests, “The leverage isn’t in the mines.
“It’s in enrichment, the industrial step that turns raw uranium into reactor fuel, and that’s where Moscow has spent decades building an advantage the West let lapse.”
The Department of Energy estimates Russia controls roughly 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity. When Congress enacted the Russian uranium ban, the department acknowledged that moving away from Russian-supplied fuel would not happen overnight. It said U.S. utilities had roughly three years of material available through inventories and existing contracts.
Washington is now spending heavily to close that gap. Congress unlocked $2.72 billion to expand domestic uranium enrichment and conversion capacity alongside the Russian import ban. In September, the Department of Energy said it had signed three $900 million milestone-based contracts, totaling $2.7 billion, to expand U.S. enrichment capacity.
Russia’s potential influence over uranium production matters, particularly if forecasts of rising nuclear demand prove correct. Still, Moscow’s strongest leverage lies in the industrial infrastructure between the mine and the reactor. Their vested, entrenched interests will take time to unseat.
“Washington has set a hard deadline for ending Russian fuel imports, but the replacement capacity arrives years later,” said Mr. Coyer. “For roughly 2028 to 2032, America will be relying on inventories and allies. The Kremlin can read a construction schedule as well as anyone.”
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