Russia is considering whether to impose a ban on uranium exports to the US as tensions between the two adversaries continue to mount, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on September 14, adding the decision would not be taken lightly.

“We are assessing the pros and cons, the potential consequences of such a move. We cannot act rashly. We will monitor how events unfold, but we cannot rule out the possibility of strict retaliatory measures,” Ryabkov stated during the BRICS media summit, as reported by TASS.

The comments come as the US is considering allowing Ukraine to hit Russian military bases deep inside Russia with Nato-supplied missiles. A day earlier Russian President Vladimir Putin said if the permission is given then that would bring Nato “directly” into the war and Russia would respond “appropriately”.

Russia’s response to long-range weapons supplies to Kyiv will be “brutal”, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the same day, commenting on the US plans to grant Ukraine permission to use its missiles inside Russia. 

"The decision [to allow Kyiv to strike] is there, all the carte blanche, indulgences have been issued to Kyiv’s clients. Therefore we will respond in a brutal way. There is an element of serious risk here, because the opponents in Washington, London and other places clearly underestimate the degree of danger of the game they continue to play," Ryabkov said, reports TASS.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova added later the same day the response would be “something you will notice.”

While some have speculated that the missile permission could spark a Third World War, all these comments suggest the Kremlin might first use its considerable monopolistic power in several commodity businesses to strike back, including uranium, oil, fertilisers, aluminium, nickel, titanium and grain amongst others, where the West is still dependent on Russian imports.

At a government meeting on September 11, Putin proposed exploring restrictions on the export of strategic raw materials, including uranium, titanium and nickel, in response to what he described as "unfriendly actions" by several countries. Putin noted, however, that it was essential not to take steps that would harm Russia’s own interests.

As bne IntelliNews reported, uranium is the new gas and like with gas, Russia is a major global producer of raw uranium and, more importantly, enriched uranium used as fuel in nuclear power plants (NPPs), so-called yellow cake uranium.

The US remains heavily dependent on Russian Ukrainian imports, as it processes little raw uranium itself, despite the legacy of the Manhattan Project, where the world’s first nuclear bomb was developed in New Mexico.

The World Nuclear Association (WNA) recently forecast global demand for uranium to rise 28% by 2030 as many countries build new NPPs to meet their green transition targets. Russia’s nuclear exports are booming and as it also offers financing for construction of its state-of-the-art NPPs, emerging market countries are rushing to sign up for Russian projects. There are some 40 projects either being built or negotiated around the world today. Russia and China alone are planning a total of 22 new reactors by 2023 and there are another half dozen Russian-backed projects throughout Africa.

Currently, Russia’s state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom controls approximately 70% of the world export market for the construction of NPPs in deals that usually come with 60-year uranium supply contracts.

In May, President Joe Biden signed into law a ban on Russian enriched uranium that came into effect in July, although it allows the Department of Energy to issue waivers out to 2028 for US companies that can’t source uranium from anywhere but Russia. Russia accounts for about a quarter (24%) of the enriched uranium used by US NPPs.

The United States set a record for uranium purchases from Russia in 2023, spending $1.2bn – the highest on record. Russia was the leading uranium supplier to the US, while Germany ranked second.

The ban is a token gesture as the US domestic produces a fraction of the uranium it needs to fuel its fleet of reactors, a problem the White House is hoping to solve. The law also unlocks about $2.7bn in funding to build out the US uranium fuel industry to meet domestic demand by 2028. Last December the US, together with Canada, France, Japan and the UK, collectively pledged to invest $4.2bn to expand the enrichment and conversion capacity of uranium to break Russia’s stranglehold over enriched uranium supplies.

NPPs account for 29% of all power stations in the US, yet the country produces almost no fuel for them. Recently, the US reported that it had managed to produce 90 kg of enriched uranium for the first time, and by the end of the year, this figure is expected to reach one tonne per annum. However, that is still nearly 700 times less than what is currently imported from Russia.

The Kremlin subsequently clarified that the president's proposal to restrict key commodity exports was not a reaction to Western arms supplies to Kyiv but rather tied to “illegal trade restrictions” and emerging new trade barriers against Russia.