Petro Kotin, President of SE «NNEGC «Energoatom», told about this in his column for the online media outlet «Economichna Pravda» («Economic truth»).
Until 2022, nuclear fuel for Ukrainian NPPs was supplied from russia (TVEL) and the USA (Westinghouse). In the very first days of the russian invasion, Energoatom ceased all cooperation with rosatom, including nuclear fuel purchases. Due to this, during the aggressive war against our country, russia lost considerable funds.
According to their own information, the state corporation rosatom net income declined 14% over the past year.
Even earlier, our Energoatom’s team took a clear and irreversible course to completely abandon the nuclear fuel supply from the aggressor country. Since 2020, no purchases of russian fuel have been made. Thus, even before the beginning of the full-fledged invasion, the budget of the russian federation underwent the loss of the profit from the fuel supply.
If other European states follow the example of Ukraine, then the enemy's losses from losing the monopoly in nuclear fuel manufacture and construction of nuclear power plants could reach over USD 100 bln per year.
The next stage of the russian monopoly destruction is setting up the production of fuel assemblies’ components, namely, top and bottom nozzles. Due to its in-house production, since 2026, Ukraine will be able to provide itself with its own nuclear fuel by 50%. Westinghouse will cover the other half.
The enemy will not be able to spend these lost funds on the production of rockets and projectiles, with which it seeks to destroy our energy system in particular and the country in general. With this money, russia will not be able to equip its military and pay the salaries to its «nuclear workers» who occupied our ZNPP.
To be continued.
