In Ukraine, the turbines of the Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, now depend on diesel. The scene is stark: a facility built to power cities reduced to the fragile reliability of fuel trucks. It is a local drama, yet it reverberates across oceans. In Washington, where nuclear energy still accounts for roughly one-fifth of U.S. electricity, the hum of those backup generators sounds like an echo of dependence.
In 2024, Russia remained the leading supplier of enriched uranium to America. Despite sanctions, tariffs, and vows of energy independence, Moscow’s centrifuges continued to provide about 20% of the fuel that U.S. reactors consumed. It is a paradox shaped not only by politics but also by contracts, capacity, and the slow mathematics of nuclear supply and demand.
Russia Still Anchors U.S. Uranium
The dependency is rooted in scale. Rosatom, through its export arm Tenex, controls a vast share of global enrichment capacity. For U.S. utilities, Russian supply remains competitively priced, reliable, and locked in by long-term agreements. In 2023, Russia accounted for nearly 27% of the U.S.’s enriched uranium imports; the drop to 20% in 2024 marked a shift but not a break.
Domestic production cannot fill the gap. U.S. uranium mines contributed barely 1% of the nation’s needs in 2023. While conversion and enrichment projects are being revived with federal funding, they remain years away from being fully operational. Europe’s Urenco and France’s Orano provide alternatives, but their capacity is already booked years in advance. Contracts in this market function less like short-term trades and more like woven cloth threads, planned and tied years in advance.
Why Alternatives Cannot Yet Replace Moscow
On the surface, the map looks promising. Canada, Australia, and Kazakhstan hold abundant reserves; Namibia and Uzbekistan offer additional supply. Yet every route comes with constraints.
Kazakhstan, the world’s largest uranium producer, has begun building export corridors through the Caspian and Caucasus to bypass Russian territory. But enrichment capacity remains the choke point, and many Kazakh volumes still intersect Russian services. Canada and Australia are politically aligned partners, but their output is highly sought after, and global competition for pounds of uranium oxide, measured in physical pounds, not currency, has intensified. Utilities in Asia and Europe, like those in the U.S., bid years ahead to secure these scarce volumes.
Fuel fabrication adds another layer. Reactors are often designed around specific blends and suppliers, making sudden substitutions difficult. Even when alternative uranium is available, adapting reactors and fuel cycles takes time. The result is a market where diversification is possible, but not immediate.
Tariffs, Wars, and the Fuel Paradox
The geopolitical backdrop complicates the picture. Donald Trump’s second presidency has brought sharper tariff strategies. In August 2025, his administration imposed a 25% tariff on India for continuing to purchase Russian oil, while calling on the European Union and G7 allies to raise tariffs on Chinese and Indian trade flows linked to Moscow.
Yet even as Washington leans on partners over oil, it remains reliant on Russian nuclear fuel. Europe, too, continues to import uranium products from Rosatom, with several member states relying on Russian assemblies for their VVER reactors. This creates a striking asymmetry: punitive tariffs in one arena, ongoing dependence in another.
Meanwhile, Zaporizhzhia’s prolonged outages serve as a reminder of risk. A nuclear facility reduced to emergency diesel illustrates not only the hazards of war but also the fragility of supply chains. For U.S. utilities, the lesson is less about politics than about continuity: contracts must hold, centrifuges must turn, and waivers must be granted when alternatives cannot yet be scaled.
The uranium chain stretches across continents, mines in Central Asia, contracts in North America, centrifuge halls in Russia and fabrication plants in Europe. Each link is measured in years, not months. In a market where fuel supply is locked in long before it is consumed, the pace of change moves more slowly than politics.
And so, even as tariffs rise, alliances shift, and corridors are redrawn, the quiet reality endures. U.S. reactors, steady in their demand, remain tied to a supply system where Russia’s presence is still deeply woven. In the hum of Zaporizhzhia’s generators and in the steady spin of Rosatom’s centrifuges, the interdependence of energy remains unmistakable.
