Putin wants renewal of soviet-era nuclear industry complex

He called the prospects for nuclear cooperation with Ukraine “nothing but promising.” Sergei Kirienko, who heads the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, or RosAtom, said that he wants to “rebuild the Minsredmash complex,” meaning former Soviet ministry that dealt with nuclear power. He will present a plan for cooperation between Kazakhstan and RosAtom at the St. Petersburg summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on 25 January and then go to Kyiv for talks on cooperation with Ukraine. Russia inherited about 80 percent of the nuclear industry of the Soviet Union but has only about half of the uranium ore it needs to make fuel to power it. RosAtom wants to buy uranium from Kazakhstan, which seeks Russian money to finance new nuclear power stations.