# Rosatom **Rosatom** is Russia's state nuclear corporation, created on December 1, 2007 from the former Federal Atomic Energy Agency. It runs the domestic reactor fleet, the nuclear-weapons complex and the world's largest reactor-export business, with 22 units under construction in seven countries as of late 2024. Its CEO is **Alexei Likhachev** (since October 2016, succeeding Sergei Kiriyenko). It is the most important part of the Russian state economy that the West has largely declined to sanction, because the West still buys its fuel. ## Why it is mostly unsanctioned - **The United States** banned imports of Russian enriched uranium in May 2024 (effective August 2024), with waivers phased out by January 1, 2028; Russia had supplied 27% of U.S. enriched uranium in 2023. On January 10, 2025 the U.S. designated Likhachev himself, bringing Rosatom-related designations to nearly 70 subsidiaries and individuals. The parent company is still not on the SDN list. - **The EU** spared Rosatom again in its 20th sanctions package (April 2026). EU utilities paid it more than €700M for nuclear fuel and services in 2024 (one advocacy source). ## Reactor diplomacy | Country | Project | |---|---| | [[Kazakhstan]] | Chosen in June 2025 to lead the first nuclear plant at Balkhash: two VVER-1200 units, about $16.4B, financed by a Russian state loan, first unit around 2034–35. China's CNNC will lead the second plant | | [[Uzbekistan]] | First export of a Russian small modular reactor: six 55-MW RITM-200N units in Jizzakh region, contract May 2024, preparatory work since April 2025 | | [[Turkey]], [[Egypt]], [[Hungary]], Bangladesh | Akkuyu, El Dabaa, Paks II and Rooppur (status not re-checked here) | These deals tie client states to Russian fuel, servicing and finance for decades. That makes Rosatom an instrument of foreign policy as much as an energy company. ## Zaporizhzhia Rosatom staff have been at the occupied **Zaporizhzhia** plant in [[Ukraine]], Europe's largest, since March 2022, and Putin declared it federal property in October 2022. All six units were in cold shutdown as of June 2026. The plant became a bargaining chip in 2025 peace talks. The December 2025 U.S. draft proposed joint U.S.–Ukraine–Russia operation in thirds, with the U.S. as primary overseer. Ukraine countered with a U.S.–Ukraine venture splitting output 50/50. ## Deprivatization Rosatom also absorbs seized assets. On December 8, 2023 a court ruled that an 89% stake in the **Solikamsk Magnesium Plant** had been illegally privatized in the 1990s, and the stake was transferred to Rosatom on January 22, 2024, feeding its rare-earths and titanium supply chain. See [[Russian Deprivatization]]. The vault's earlier claim of Kovalchuk-family influence over Rosatom through the Kurchatov Institute, which [[Yuri Kovalchuk]]'s brother Mikhail directs, has not been sourced and is kept only as a pointer. ## See Also - [[Russian Deprivatization]] · [[Russian Deprivatization Timeline]] · [[Rostec]] · [[Rosimushchestvo]] - [[Yuri Kovalchuk]] · [[Ukraine]] · [[Kazakhstan]] · [[Uzbekistan]] · [[Hungary]] · [[Viktor Orbán]]