Rosatom
Based on Wikipedia: Rosatom
The State That Runs on Atoms
In March 2022, Russian soldiers occupied the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Within days, employees from Rosatom—Russia's state nuclear corporation—arrived uninvited, demanded documentation, threatened Ukrainian workers, and set up operations as if they owned the place. They didn't. The plant belonged to Ukraine's Energoatom. But Rosatom acted as though international law was merely a suggestion.
This brazen seizure of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant revealed something essential about Rosatom. It is not simply a company that builds reactors and enriches uranium. It is an instrument of state power that operates at the intersection of energy, weapons, and geopolitics. Understanding Rosatom means understanding how Russia projects influence across the globe—one reactor at a time.
What Rosatom Actually Is
Rosatom is a state corporation, which in Russian legal terms means something quite specific. It's not a ministry, though it has ministerial powers. It's not a private company, though it generates enormous revenue. It's a hybrid entity that answers directly to the Kremlin while operating with the flexibility of a commercial enterprise.
The corporation controls over 350 separate enterprises. These range from uranium mines in Kazakhstan to the world's only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. They include research institutes, fuel fabrication plants, and the facilities responsible for maintaining Russia's nuclear weapons. All of this falls under one organizational umbrella headquartered in Moscow.
In practical terms, Rosatom is Russia's largest electricity producer. In 2023, its power plants generated about 217 terawatt-hours—roughly one-fifth of all electricity consumed in Russia. But the domestic market is almost secondary to Rosatom's global ambitions.
The Nuclear Monopoly
Here is a statistic that should give pause to anyone interested in global energy security: Rosatom is responsible for ninety percent of nuclear technology exports worldwide. As of late 2024, the corporation had twenty-two nuclear power plant units under development across seven countries. No other entity comes close.
The company controls thirty-eight percent of the global nuclear market. It provides thirty-six percent of all uranium enrichment services. It supplies fuel to seventy-eight power reactors across fifteen countries. When your competitors are companies like Cameco from Canada, Orano from France, and ConverDyn from the United States, and you still dominate the market so thoroughly, you have achieved something approaching monopoly status.
This dominance didn't happen by accident. It emerged from decades of Soviet investment in nuclear technology, combined with aggressive post-Soviet commercialization. Russia inherited roughly eighty percent of the Soviet nuclear infrastructure, including nine power plants and extensive research facilities. What might have become a liability—all that aging nuclear capacity—became the foundation for global expansion.
The Bureaucratic Lineage
To understand Rosatom, you need to understand its predecessors. The organization traces its lineage to the most secretive depths of the Soviet state.
In June 1953—just months after Stalin's death—the Soviet Council of Ministers transformed something called the First Main Directorate into the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. The anodyne name was intentional misdirection. This ministry was responsible for the Soviet nuclear weapons program, and later took on civilian nuclear power as well.
The name changed several times over the decades. In 1989, it merged with the Ministry of Atomic Energy. After the Soviet collapse in 1992, the Russian Federation created the Ministry for Atomic Energy, known as Minatom. This ministry managed everything nuclear until 2004, when it became the Federal Agency on Atomic Energy.
Then came December 2007. President Vladimir Putin signed legislation dissolving the agency and transferring all its powers to a new entity: the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom. The restructuring gave the organization more commercial freedom while keeping it firmly under state control. It was a characteristic Putin-era solution—market mechanisms harnessed to state objectives.
The Business of Building Reactors
Nuclear power plants are among the most expensive and complex infrastructure projects on Earth. A single reactor can cost ten billion dollars or more. Construction takes a decade. The technical requirements are extraordinarily demanding. Mistakes can be catastrophic.
This creates an unusual market dynamic. Countries that want nuclear power but lack the technical capacity to build it themselves have limited options. Rosatom has positioned itself as the turnkey solution.
The corporation doesn't just build reactors—it offers complete packages. Financing. Fuel supply agreements. Training for operators. Waste management services. Decommissioning plans. For a developing country seeking to diversify its energy mix, Rosatom offers a one-stop shop.
As of 2023, Russia had formalized nuclear cooperation agreements with fifty-four countries. Some of these are merely memoranda of understanding. Others involve concrete construction contracts. The geography spans from Egypt to Bangladesh, from Turkey to Belarus.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupted some of these plans. Several countries reconsidered their nuclear partnerships with Moscow. But the fundamental dynamic persists: few organizations can match what Rosatom offers, and countries that need power plants have limited alternatives.
Nuclear Diplomacy
Every reactor contract comes with strings attached—some visible, some not.
When a country agrees to let Rosatom build its nuclear infrastructure, it enters a relationship that can last a century or more. Reactors operate for forty to sixty years. Fuel supplies must continue for the life of the plant. Waste must be managed for millennia. The technical dependencies create political leverage.
Russia understands this perfectly. Nuclear energy diplomacy has become a cornerstone of Russian foreign policy, particularly in regions where Moscow seeks to expand influence. A reactor deal with Egypt strengthens ties with Cairo. Contracts in Turkey complicate Ankara's relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known as NATO. Plants in Hungary create economic dependencies that make Budapest reluctant to criticize the Kremlin.
Critics call this energy colonialism dressed up in peaceful atoms. Supporters argue that Rosatom simply offers competitive products to willing buyers. The truth likely contains elements of both perspectives.
The Fuel Chain
Building reactors is only part of the business. The real leverage comes from controlling the fuel supply chain.
Nuclear fuel begins as uranium ore, dug from the ground in places like Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia. That ore must be converted to uranium hexafluoride, a gas. The gas then undergoes enrichment—a process that increases the concentration of uranium-235, the isotope that sustains nuclear fission. Finally, the enriched uranium is fabricated into fuel assemblies, the precisely engineered bundles of fuel rods that go into reactors.
Rosatom dominates every step of this chain. Its mining subsidiary, Uranium One, operates assets in Kazakhstan, the United States, and Tanzania. Its fuel division, TVEL, produces fuel for Russian reactors and exports to customers worldwide. Its enrichment facilities—four major plants spread across Russia—process uranium using advanced gas centrifuge technology.
The centrifuge technology deserves special mention. Gas centrifuges spin uranium hexafluoride at tremendous speeds, separating the heavier uranium-238 from the lighter uranium-235. Russia's centrifuge designs are among the most efficient in the world. This gives Rosatom a significant cost advantage in enrichment services.
When European utilities buy enriched uranium from Rosatom, they are purchasing a product that often cannot be easily replaced. Fuel assemblies are designed for specific reactor types. Switching suppliers requires regulatory approval, engineering modifications, and significant expense. The dependencies are technical as well as commercial.
The Icebreaker Fleet
One of Rosatom's more unusual assets is a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. These massive ships use onboard reactors to generate the power needed to smash through Arctic ice several meters thick.
Russia operates the only nuclear icebreaker fleet in the world. This gives Moscow unique capabilities in the Arctic—a region of increasing strategic importance as climate change opens new shipping routes and exposes resources previously locked beneath ice.
The Northern Sea Route runs along Russia's Arctic coast, connecting Europe to Asia through waters that were historically impassable for most of the year. Nuclear icebreakers can keep this route open year-round. As the Arctic warms, the commercial potential of this passage grows.
Rosatom controls not just the icebreakers but the entire infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route. This includes navigation services, ice forecasting, and escort fees. Countries and shipping companies that want to use this route must work with Rosatom.
The Weapons Connection
Rosatom's civilian activities cannot be neatly separated from its military role. The corporation maintains Russia's nuclear weapons complex. The same enrichment facilities that produce reactor fuel can, in principle, produce weapons-grade material. The same expertise in nuclear engineering applies to both warheads and power plants.
This dual-use nature creates tension in international relations. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which most countries have signed, distinguishes between peaceful and military uses of nuclear technology. But the line is blurry. The same centrifuges, the same scientists, the same organizational structures serve both purposes.
During the Ukraine war, this connection became more explicit. Various Rosatom divisions reportedly shifted their activities toward military support—producing components for the Ministry of Defense, participating in projects of "geopolitical significance," and redirecting resources to wartime needs.
The involvement of a major nuclear corporation in military operations raises what experts call "systemic nuclear security risks." These range from unpredictable changes in power plant operations to potential threats during the transportation of nuclear materials. When the organization responsible for civilian nuclear safety is simultaneously supporting military operations, institutional focus can become dangerously divided.
The Zaporizhzhia Crisis
The occupation of Ukraine's nuclear facilities demonstrated these risks in concrete terms.
Russian forces seized the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on the first day of the invasion, February 24, 2022. Within forty-eight hours, Rosatom personnel had arrived. They demanded access to documents, operating procedures, and plant records. Ukrainian staff described an atmosphere of coercion and threat.
The situation at Zaporizhzhia proved even more serious. This plant—six reactors making it Europe's largest nuclear facility—fell under Russian military control in early March 2022. Rosatom engineers established a presence and began what amounted to an attempted takeover of operations.
By late September 2022, Rosatom was actively trying to transfer ownership from Ukraine's Energoatom to itself. Ukrainian employees were given two weeks to apply for jobs with the Russian corporation—an ultimatum that one Ukrainian ambassador described to the International Atomic Energy Agency as "the biggest nuclear theft in history."
The Rosatom spokesperson claimed their employees were present merely to "ensure safety" and were not involved in management or security. This explanation strained credulity given the documented activities of Rosatom personnel at the site.
The Sanctions Problem
Western nations face a dilemma when it comes to Rosatom. The corporation's activities clearly support the Russian state and, by extension, the war in Ukraine. But the nuclear dependencies run deep.
The United Kingdom imposed direct sanctions on Rosatom and its executives in February 2023. The United States has sanctioned specific subsidiaries and, in January 2025, targeted senior officials including Chief Executive Officer Alexey Likhachev. These sanctions freeze assets and restrict business dealings with American entities.
But the European Union has balked at comprehensive action. Too many European reactors depend on Rosatom fuel. Too much enrichment capacity sits in Russian facilities. The European Parliament has called for sanctions, but the Council of the European Union—where member states with nuclear dependencies can block action—has not followed through.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an American think tank, estimated that Rosatom collected roughly two billion dollars from American and European sources in fiscal year 2023. The organization argues this revenue is "unacceptable" given Rosatom's role in the Russian state apparatus and recommends a complete ban on the corporation's activities in the United States.
The challenge is practical as much as political. Replacing Russian nuclear fuel and services takes years. Alternative suppliers lack capacity. The transition costs money and creates risks. Countries must balance their opposition to Russian aggression against their need to keep the lights on.
The Ruthenium Incident
In October 2017, monitoring stations across Europe detected unusual levels of ruthenium-106, a radioactive isotope. Ruthenium-106 is a byproduct of uranium fission—its presence in the atmosphere indicates a nuclear event of some kind.
Rosatom denied any accident or leak. The corporation suggested the plume might have come from a satellite burning up during reentry. Scientists were skeptical.
A 2019 study definitively ruled out the satellite hypothesis. Researchers analyzed air samples from multiple monitoring sites and traced the plume's likely origin. Their conclusion: the most probable cause was a fire or explosion during an attempt to process ruthenium into cerium-144, an isotope used in certain specialized applications.
Rosatom continues to deny any incident occurred. The episode illustrated a persistent criticism of the corporation: its opacity. A 2017 report in The Financial Times described Rosatom as a "Kremlin-controlled company" with an "expansionist agenda" and insufficient transparency. The Bellona Foundation, an environmental organization, highlighted the difficulty of obtaining information about Rosatom's activities, particularly in countries with weaker oversight like Sudan.
The Pivot to Wind
Even Rosatom recognizes that nuclear power faces competitive pressure. In 2017, the corporation made an unexpected announcement: it would invest in wind energy.
The reasoning was pragmatic. Costs for renewable energy had been falling rapidly. In some markets, wind and solar were becoming cheaper than nuclear. Rosatom's leadership worried that their core export market might shrink as countries chose less expensive alternatives.
There were also domestic concerns. Russia had excess electricity generation capacity. The economics of new nuclear plants in Russia were becoming unfavorable. The government was considering reducing subsidies for nuclear construction under a program called Dogovor Postavki Moshnosti—essentially, guaranteed payment contracts that ensured developers would recover their investments over twenty years.
By 2023, Rosatom had commissioned nine wind farms totaling one gigawatt of capacity. These facilities generated over two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. The corporation signed a contract to build its first international wind farm in Kyrgyzstan.
The diversification extended beyond wind. Rosatom's 2020 strategy called for branching into one hundred new business areas. These included nuclear medicine, composite materials, hydrogen production, additive manufacturing (commonly known as 3D printing), and waste management. The goal was to triple revenue by 2030, with forty percent coming from these new businesses.
The Organizational Maze
Rosatom's structure is Byzantine in its complexity. As of early 2021, the corporation comprised 356 entities of various legal forms. Some are pure research institutes. Others are uranium mines. Still others manufacture nuclear fuel or operate power plants.
The civilian assets are concentrated in a holding company called Atomenergoprom, which itself unites 222 enterprises. This creates a corporate structure of staggering intricacy—wheels within wheels, subsidiaries owning subsidiaries.
The mining division operates through JSC Atomredmetzoloto, which consolidates Russian uranium assets. Key subsidiaries include companies with impenetrable names like JSC Khiagda and JSC Dalur. Uranium One, the international mining company, operates directly under Rosatom rather than through the mining division.
The fuel division is managed by JSC TVEL. This organization handles everything from uranium conversion and enrichment to the actual fabrication of fuel assemblies. It operates four major enrichment plants spread across Siberia and the Urals—facilities in Angarsk, Zelenogorsk, Novouralsk, and Seversk.
Understanding which part of Rosatom does what requires a dedicated effort. This complexity may be partly organic—the result of decades of Soviet bureaucratic accumulation—and partly deliberate, making oversight more difficult.
The Technical Edge
Rosatom's market position rests partly on genuine technical capabilities. Russian reactor designs, particularly the VVER series, have a strong safety record and competitive economics. Russian enrichment technology uses less energy than some alternatives. Russian nuclear engineers have decades of accumulated expertise.
The corporation is building four new nuclear power plants within Russia. The Kursk NPP-2 project involves four units using the latest Russian reactor design, the VVER-TOI. The Leningrad NPP-2 and Smolensk NPP-2 projects are replacing aging Soviet-era RBMK reactors—the same design that failed catastrophically at Chernobyl in 1986—with modern VVER units.
Rosatom is also developing advanced fuel technologies. These include "accident-tolerant fuel" designed to be safer in extreme conditions, MOX fuel that incorporates plutonium recycled from spent fuel, and REMIX fuel made from reprocessed uranium and plutonium mixtures. The corporation participates in international research projects including ITER, the experimental fusion reactor under construction in France, and FAIR, a particle accelerator facility in Germany.
These technical capabilities are real and significant. They help explain why countries continue to work with Rosatom despite political pressure to divest. The corporation offers products and services that are difficult to obtain elsewhere.
The Future of State Atoms
Rosatom's trajectory will be shaped by forces largely beyond its control. The war in Ukraine has accelerated efforts to reduce dependence on Russian nuclear services. But these efforts take time to bear fruit. Nuclear infrastructure cannot be replaced quickly.
The corporation's order book remains substantial. As of 2023, the ten-year foreign order portfolio stood at over 127 billion dollars. Revenue reached 16 billion dollars. New product lines added another trillion rubles to the order book. By commercial measures, Rosatom remains a going concern.
But the strategic environment has shifted. Countries that might once have welcomed Russian reactors now hesitate. Financing that once flowed freely faces restrictions. The reputational damage from Zaporizhzhia lingers. Rosatom's advantages in cost and technology must now overcome substantial political headwinds.
What hasn't changed is the fundamental nature of the organization. Rosatom remains an instrument of Russian state power. Its commercial activities serve national objectives. Its technical capabilities support both civilian and military purposes. Its global reach extends Russian influence into the energy infrastructure of dozens of countries.
Understanding Rosatom means understanding that atoms have always been political. The peaceful atom and the military atom are siblings, born from the same research, developed by the same engineers, deployed by the same states. Russia has simply been more explicit about this connection than most.
The corporation's logo is a Möbius strip—a surface with only one side, where inside and outside become indistinguishable. It is, perhaps inadvertently, an apt symbol for an organization where commerce and statecraft, civilian and military, peaceful and threatening blur into a single continuous whole.