The diplomatic overture came on the wake of a vote last month in which Kazakhstanis spoke out in favor of building a nuclear power plant—stoking long-held hopes among Russian officials that Rosatom would be selected to build the facility in the former Soviet republic.

Kazakhstan, however, has thus far proved that it’s not such an easy date.  Rosatom’s preferred approach to building nuclear plants abroad is to issue giant loans that lock in its national customers for decades, assuring their dependence on Russian technology, fuel and know-how. This so-called “build-own-operate” model of reactor export was pioneered by Sergei Kiriyenko, Rosatom’s former chief executive, who now serves in the presidential administration, and was most recently deployed in Turkey, where the company is building four VVER-1200 reactors, its signature export.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Rosatom’s expansion of its international portfoliohas become even more important to the Kremlin as it seeks to buttress current alliances and forge new ones. Rosatom is also deeply embroiled in the war itself, having taken control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the early days of the invasion.

Nonetheless, Rosatom’s broad list of customers for both reactor technology and fuel supplies—a list that includes many of Ukraine’s allies in the EU—has thus far helped it dodge the sanctions that have befallen Russia’s other energy behemoths. It has also built, or is building, 20 reactors outside Russia, with Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, and Turkey among its clients.

But Kazakhstan is keeping its options open and entertaining the advances of many suitors in order to form a consortium of foreign nuclear suppliers, said its energy minister, Almasadam Satkaliev in advance of Moscow’s state visit. According to him and other Kazakhstani government officials, nuclear firms from countries like France, China and South Korea are also very much in the running for the megaproject, which will be built on the arid southeastern steppes on Lake Balkhash.

That Moscow would have to continue tapdancing to merely be considered among these other countries was clear enough to Putin during the press conference that concluded his visit.  

“If there is a need and desire among our partners, in this case in Kazakhstan, to make some decisions, including third countries, to organize the joint work of their specialists, this is also possible, and Rosatom has such experience of cooperation with foreign partners,” he said in response to a question about possible Russian involvement in the project. “The final decision is always up to the customer. I think that our cooperation with Kazakhstan in this area is quite possible.”

Bellona nuclear expert Alexander Nikitin says this state of affairs can’t help but leave a slightly bitter taste in the mouth of the Kremlin, which has long viewed Kazakhstan as part of its post-Soviet sphere of influence.

But the current composition of the Kazakh government may no longer be so friendly to that assumption, Nikitin said. When Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s post-Soviet autocrat, finally relinquished power after three decades of rule in 2019, much of that network was swept way.

Now, notes Nikitin, most of those currently in charge of Kazakhstan’s energy industry are of a generation that has never worked in Rosatom’s shadow, and thus have few connections to the Russian way of doing things. Satkaliev, for instance, has a business degree from Stanford, in the US, and has worked within Kazakh energy structures for his entire career.

And these structures, said Nikitin, aren’t particularly oriented to embracing Moscow’s helping hand.

“Kazakhstan and, of course, the entire management elite feels the support of China and they really evaluate what Russia is doing, so they make decisions quite carefully when listening to Russian proposals, especially those as serious as building a nuclear power plant,” Nikitin said. “Judging by the fact that Putin commented quite reservedly on the issue of building the plant, it became clear that it would not be possible to build a purely Russian nuclear power plant—so they moved on to the second option: Russia has experience in organizing ‘construction consortiums.’”

Rosatom chief executive Alexei Likhachev, who accompanied Putin to Astana underscored that message in interviews with Kazakh media, saying, “I will be immodest and say that only we know how to assemble such projects into large international consortiums.”

Still, despite the high-profile nuclear roadshow the Kremlin brought to Astana, Putin seems to have left the talks empty handed, as far a nuclear plant build was concerned.

“It’s clear that Russia did not secure a build-own-operate deal, and it was a blow,” Nikitin said. “Now everything will depend on the choice of the project—if it is not a Russian VVER, then for Rosatom and Russia it will be a complete humiliation.”