Vladislav Vorotnikov reports that a draft bill submitted Friday to the State Duma in Moscow, the lower house of the Russia parliament, would ban all trade between state-owned nuclear company Rosatom and U.S. nuclear power companies. The bill was submitted jointly by all State Duma fractions and its chairman Vyacheslav Volodin. It could be considered and possibly adopted during the next State Duma session next week, according to information on the State Duma website. The bill is in response to sanctions the Trump administration imposed against 24 Russian top businessman and government officials April 6. In addition to freezing trade with the U.S. nuclear power industry, the bill would impose similar trade restrictions on software, hardware, pharmaceutical and farm products from the U.S. to Russia, as well as bar from U.S. companies from participating in the privatization of state-owned assets in Russia. According to the bill, all restrictive measures could be extended to other countries if they join the U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Sergey Mironov, chairman of the State Duma fraction Fair Russia, said in a statement on the State Duma website Friday that the ban on civilian nuclear trade is among the most important aspects of the bill. Rosatom has several uranium mining projects in joint ventures with U.S. companies. TVEL, Rosatom's nuclear fuel division, signed a contract in April 2016 to supply test batches of its TVS-K fuel assemblies at pressurized water reactors in U.S. Delivery of that fuel was slated to begin early 2019, according to information on Rosatom's website.
Techsnabexport, Rosatom's uranium subsidiary, also has signed contracts to export enriched uranium to the U.S., according to the website
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