Recent off a heat welcome in Beijing, final week Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, for a state go to and a Eurasian Financial Union summit. Whereas the EAEU assembly was rife with stress, not least due to the rising divide between Europe-curious Armenia and Russia, Putin’s engagements together with his Kazakh counterpart, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, had been steeped with bonhomie.
The 2 presidents planted an oak tree within the “Alley of Everlasting Friendship between Kazakhstan and Russia.,” which opened in Astana final yr, and oversaw the signing of a dozen agreements, an important of which targeted on Russia’s constructing of Kazakhstan’s first trendy nuclear energy plant.
These included an settlement on “the fundamental ideas and situations of cooperation on the undertaking to construct a nuclear energy plant on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan,” one other on the “provision of a state export mortgage” from Russia to Kazakhstan to finance the undertaking, and an motion plan for “interdepartmental cooperation within the area of regulation of nuclear and radiation security for 2026-2030.” There was additionally a forex swap settlement, arguably tied to the export mortgage.
Final summer time, Russia’s Rosatom was chosen to take the lead in constructing Kazakhstan’s first trendy nuclear energy plant. The precise specs have developed for the reason that preliminary bulletins, selecting an envisioned pair of VVER-1200 III+ reactors with a mixed capability of two.4 GWe.
Final August, Kazakh officers marked the ceremonial launch of development (in actuality, the launch of engineering survey work) in Ulken. At the moment, Almasadam Satkaliyev, the top of Kazakhstan’s atomic power company, instructed reporters, “The full funding within the undertaking can be roughly $14-15 billion…An extra $1 billion can be allotted to the development of social services and trendy infrastructure.”
Final week, Satkaliyev cited a barely bigger determine: $16.4 billion, to incorporate about $2 billion for safety and infrastructure, in accordance with official state information company Kazinform. Whereas the precise particulars of Russia’s export mortgage to Kazakhstan haven’t been revealed, it has been reported that Moscow is furnishing as a lot as 85 p.c of the undertaking’s financing.
Given Russia’s present geopolitical and monetary stresses, courtesy of its full-scale and ongoing invasion of Ukraine, this sparked appreciable curiosity. Putin felt the necessity to clarify.
“… We don’t simply sink this cash or give it away; we lend it out. That is cash that can be returned to the Russian treasury. We lend it with curiosity, as is customary in all such instances,” he mentioned.
Putin argued that the undertaking was advantageous for Russia given Moscow’s long-standing cooperation with Astana concerning uranium. Kazakhstan is the world’s high producer of uranium.
Officers have pegged 2027 for the real begin of development and are focusing on early 2034 to fee the primary reactor.
Of their joint assertion on the conclusion of Putin’s state go to, Kazakhstan and Russia laid out the foundations of their relationship, beginning with historical past — highlighting “the significance of a accountable perspective in direction of historic reminiscence.” Further foundations embody “widespread efforts to develop Eurasian integration, “a standard border” and “financial partnership.”
The 2 states are “equal companions, strategic allies, and good neighbors.”
