Agency head Rafael Grossi has voiced doubts that the bloc would sanction Russia’s Rosatom
The European Union is dependent on Russian uranium deliveries and sanctioning them would be unrealistic, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi said on Monday.
Grossi was in Brussels, briefing EU foreign ministers on the Iranian nuclear enrichment program when the question of possible nuclear sanctions against Russia came up during an exclusive interview with Reuters.
“Many companies in the West depend on Russian supplies – enriched uranium or fuel,” Grossi said. “The consensus is [that] sanctioning Rosatom would not be realistic and it’s impractical. It would put the nuclear industry at a standstill in many countries.”
Some EU member states have proposed extending the bloc’s embargo – imposed over the Ukraine conflict – to nuclear fuel sold by Moscow. Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy giant, Rosatom, owns nearly 50% of global uranium enrichment infrastructure and accounted for almost 36% of the world’s exports in 2022.
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