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Russia and Iran: Agreement for Eight New Nuclear Power Plants. What Will Washington Say?

It is now well known that Russia is increasingly involved in Iran's nuclear program, and this is particularly interesting at a time when Moscow has offered to mediate between Washington and Tehran on the issue of uranium enrichment and a new nuclear monitoring agreement.

In a surprise announcement given the massive and ambitious scale of the initiative, Iranian state sources said on Monday that Russia will build eight nuclear power plants in Iran , two of which are already under construction.

“Russia has signed a contract to build eight nuclear power plants in Iran, including four in the southern city of Bushehr,” Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, announced on Monday.

This is a historic step forward in Iran-Russia relations, after the two countries deepened military cooperation in connection with the war in Ukraine (where Russian forces have made extensive use of Iranian Shahed drones), considering that only a few years ago Moscow was not even willing to sell nuclear fuel to Iran.

as many as eight power plants (or reactors?) Some critics have denounced this move as a simple public relations stunt and a disservice to the Iranian people, given that, according to some estimates, Russia has already taken more than a billion dollars from Iran for the reconstruction of just one nuclear site in Bushehr, without any significant progress having been made.

Nuclear facilities in Iran

For example, an industry source described previous problems and serious delays in the roadmap:

Iran has one operating nuclear reactor, a Russian-designed 1,000 MW VVER unit in the southern port city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf coast. Two additional VVER-1000 units are under construction at the site. Work on Unit 2 began in 2019 and commercial operation is now scheduled for 2029, after earlier reports indicated the unit could be commissioned last year . Iranian media reported that installation of safety equipment at Unit 2 began in early February, along with excavation work for the water cooling pumps for both units.

Russian state media also seem to confirm the announcement and the extremely ambitious deal, then from the announcement to the construction we will see how it will end.

According to a broader picture of Iran-Russia energy cooperation provided by the Arms Control Association :

The conclusion of a deal under which Russia will supply Iran with nuclear fuel for a 1,000-megawatt light-water nuclear reactor marks the latest stage in a decades-long dispute.

On February 27, Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Alexander Rumyantsev announced that Tehran and Moscow had finally signed an agreement to supply fuel for the reactor near the southern Iranian city of Bushehr for a period of 10 years. Although the United States has long opposed the reactor project , the Bush administration has not publicly criticized the agreement.

Bouchehr Nuclear Power Plant

In 1995, Russia agreed to complete the reactor project, which is estimated to be worth about $800 million. The original German contractor abandoned the project after the Iranian revolution in 1979.

The final agreement has been postponed several times due to negotiations between the two sides over a clause requiring Iran to return spent fuel to Russia . The agreement was designed to reduce the risk of Iran separating plutonium from spent fuel. Separated plutonium can be used as fissile material in nuclear weapons. (See ACT, October 2003.)

Iran has no known facilities for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to obtain plutonium, although Tehran has conducted experiments along these lines.

Russia and Iran have strengthened their bilateral energy cooperation in recent years, with President Putin boasting of reaching a “comprehensive strategic partnership” that sets “ambitious goals and outlines guidelines for deepening long-term bilateral cooperation.”

All this, of course, comes against the backdrop of severe US-led sanctions against Russian and Iranian economies and companies. Both countries have relied on the BRICS and non-aligned nations to meet their growing military and industrial needs, with mixed results now.


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The article Russia and Iran: agreement for eight new nuclear power plants. What will Washington say? comes from Scenari Economici .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/russia-iran-centrali-nucleari-bushehr/ on Tue, 10 Jun 2025 08:00:07 +0000.