PARIS (AP) — While the European Union has agreed to use Russian oil and gas, its member countries continue to import and export nuclear fuel that is not subject to EU sanctions, much to the chagrin of the Ukrainian government and environmental activists.
A shipment of uranium from the French port of Dunkirk crossed the North Sea on Thursday to the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga. It is the third time in just over a month that Panamanian-flagged Mikhail Dudin docked in Dunkirk to ship uranium. to or from Russia.
Greenpeace France denounced the ongoing shipments and called for a halt to the entire nuclear fuel industry, which it said “funds the war in Ukraine, expands energy dependence (on Europe) and delays the transition to renewable energy. “
The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, has come forward to target Russia’s nuclear sector in its new sanctions circular tabled on Wednesday.
“France guarantees strict compliance through economic actors with all European sanctions followed against Russia. Civilian nuclear power is affected by those sanctions,” France’s foreign ministry told The Associated Press.
The ministry said EU countries “do not make this an applicable domain to end Russian aggression against Ukraine. “
Ukraine, for its part, is pushing for European sanctions in this area. Ukrainian President Oleg Ustenko’s economic adviser said Wednesday that “when it comes to uranium, we think it’s incredible to impose sanctions, not just on Russian oil. “
“Oil, gas, uranium and coal, all this deserves to be banned. Because they are this cash to finance this war,” Ustenko said.
According to Greenpeace France, the reprocessed uranium destined to be shipped to Russia was loaded on Wednesday at the Mikhail Dudin. Pauline Boyer, a power campaigner at Greenpeace France, said the ship’s repeated voyages between Russia and France show “how trapped the French nuclear industry is in its dependence on Russia. “
The French government has stated that the country does not count on Russia to obtain nuclear power plants that generate 67% of its electrical power, more than any other country.
EDF, which manages all of France’s nuclear power plants, said in a statement that its uranium materials were “guaranteed through long-term contracts of up to 20 years, with a policy of diversification in terms of resources and suppliers. “
France imports as much of its uranium from Niger, Australia and Kazakhstan.
“The price of the nuclear fuel industry exported from Russia is small compared to fuel and oil exports,” the French Foreign Ministry said, suggesting that the application of sanctions in this area would not have much effect on Moscow.
The ministry said France and the EU aspire “in the long term” to be independent of all Russian energy sources, nuclear fuel.
Greenpeace France said a shipment of Russian uranium that an Associated Press reporter saw unloaded in Dunkirk earlier this month was trucked to a plant in Lingen, Germany.
The Lingen plant is operated by Framatome, majority owned by French applications giant EDF. It is nuclear fuel to force plants in France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain, Sweden and Finland.
In the face of protests from activists, the German government took a critical view of the uranium shipment, but said it might not prevent the fuel from being processed because it is not covered by EU sanctions against Russia.
Late last month, the enriched uranium was discharged from Mikhail Dudin in Dunkirk bound for the Rhone Valley in southern France, home to vital sites of the French civil nuclear industry, according to Greenpeace France.
The French nuclear industry has a number of contracts with Russian state force Rosatom, adding some to import enriched uranium for European nuclear power plants and to export reprocessed uranium to Russia. Rosatom is one of the world’s largest players in the nuclear force market.
France-based multinational Orano has a contract with Rosatom to buy uranium reprocessed into nuclear fuel at its plant in Seversk, Siberia, and use it in reactors to produce power.
The U. S. force also imports uranium from Russia to force its nuclear power plants.
The AP recently tracked millions of shipments of radioactive uranium hexafluoride from Russia’s state-owned Tenex JSC, the world’s largest exporter of early nuclear fuel cycle products, to Westinghouse Electric Co. in South Carolina.
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AP journalist Samuel Petrequin in Brussels contributed to the story.