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Economics and International Law

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Message Jason Sibert

The headlines have been full of the tensions that tear our world apart.

There's the Russian war in Ukraine, which is turning in the Ukrainians' favor, the fear of China invading Taiwan, and the fallout from the Ukrainian war, a possible harsh winter for Europe and building tensions between Russia and the West. Some fear a nuclear war that could kill thousands or millions. However, there's been less attention paid to the economic side of the West/Russia conflict, except for writer Henry Sokolski's story "Stop Funding Russia's Nuclear Weapons."

As the United States and its European allies continue to weigh in on the possibility of the Russians using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the US and EU states continue to shovel money to Rosatom, a firm that maintains Moscow's nuclear weapons complex and just filched a $60-dollar Ukrainian nuclear plan, as stated by Sokolski. Why would Washington and Brussels back such a firm? Do we really want to support organizations that back Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear arsenal? The nuclear energy industry in the US and the EU claim we cannot afford not to.

Rosatom supplies nuclear fuel to nuclear plants in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Any EU decision to cut off fuel to these plants would immediately harm these states economically. So, when Poland, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Germany recently recommended that the EU ban Russian nuclear imports to avoid funding Russia's military efforts, the Hungarians and French howled and Brussels blinked.

What's Paris's brief? Russia buys two-thirds of France's electrical steam generators. Also, French nuclear fuel fabricator Framatome just struck a major nuclear fuel development cooperation agreement with Rosatom. Finland operates two large Russian VVER reactors, yet it just "cancelled" plans to build another and is open to embargoing all Rosatom imports. Meanwhile, Sweden's giant energy firm, Vattenfall, cut off Russian uranium imports, substituting them with Canadian and Australian ore. Yet, besides these proud actors, Europe has played a weak hand.

Sokolski points out that the EU must come to a decision by consensus, but he asks a question about our own country. He said: "there are no Russian-designed reactors in America. Nor is the United States without alternative uranium suppliers in Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan or practical, near-term uranium enrichment options. Yet, Washington pretty much followed the EU's play book. Russia provides roughly 15 percent of America's raw uranium and 28 percent of its enriched uranium. Combined with Russian nuclear sales to the EU, these uranium imports from Russia fatten Rosatom's coffers by as much as $1 billion a year - easily more than Rosatom "spends" to maintain Russia's nuclear weapons complex."

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Jason Sibert worked for the Suburban Journals in the St. Louis area as a staff writer for a decade. His work has been published in a variety of publications since then and he is currently the executive director of the Peace Economy Project.
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