Bellona has published a new report that analyze the new footing on which Rosatom, Russia’s power state nuclear corporation, has found itself as the the war in Ukraine grinds on.

It’s clear that the putatively civilian corporation is now a direct participant in and beneficiary of Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian nuclear infrastructure. In the early days of the war, Moscow’s troops marched into Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident and now the host of numerous industrial scale activities aimed at cleaning it up.

Days later, it then overran the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest such facility — making it the world’s first nuclear power station to be taken as prize as the result of an armed attack.

Yet despite international sanctions as a result of the war, Rosatom continues to flourish as a leading force in the global nuclear industry, maintaining its presence in a number of countries, including in several European Union — and indeed NATO — nations.

Our report, entitled “The Nuclear Industry of Russia on the Eve and at the Beginning of the War”  analyzes the place Rosatom occupies in the state structure of Russia, and how the management system of the atomic behemoth and its enterprises functions. It provides an overview of the state of Rosatom assets within the country, as well as Rosatom projects abroad, and examines its role in the global nuclear fuel cycle, as well as the scientific institutes and educational projects it supports.

The document also makes bare the peculiarities of the Russian nuclear industry under the current conditions of war and international sanctions. In preparing the report, Bellona has accounted for the challenges that emerged as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and offers its insight and opinion on the future prospects for the functioning of the Russian nuclear industry in the new and more hostile world its government has created.

Click here to download the report: The Russian nuclear industry during wartime, 2022 and early 2023