Why Did Putin Want American Uranium?

The sale of American uranium to Russia has entered the news cycle again as two separate GOP committees have opened investigations into the matter. The scandal revolves around the fact that there may have been a pay-for-play scheme.

Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, had to approve the sale of Uranium One to Russia because this mining company controlled strategic reserves of uranium. She did so in 2009, and concurrently, she received “donations” totaling $145 million dollars from shareholders, as documented by the superb investigative journalist Peter Schweizer and confirmed by the New York Times.

Money flowed from Russia, through a mining company, and ended up at the Clinton Foundation.

The focus has been entirely on Hillary. She sold out America’s interests and put herself first. This was a two person deal though, and the other side of the equation has not been scrutinized. What was Putin trying to achieve when he bought American uranium?

Ostensibly, a country would buy uranium because they need uranium. But upon a close examination of Russia’s situation, that does not seem to be the case.

According to the World Nuclear Association, Russia is the sixth biggest producer of uranium in the world. Additionally, Kazakhstan is the world’s largest producer of uranium (they sold some of their uranium, but notwithstanding that, were still a dominant owner of uranium). Kazakhstan shares a long border with Russia, the two countries have a military pact, and Astana still enjoys the same dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is a life long Communist with close ties to Moscow dating back decades. Further, Kazakhistan has no nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons, and thus no need to hoard their uranium. If Kazakhstan has a lot of uranium, Russia has a lot of uranium.

When the production is combined for the number one and number six players, it amounts to 27,579 tonnes of uranium mined in 2016. For a point of reference, David Albright, physicist and expert on nuclear weapons, calculated that a nuclear bomb can be made with ten tons of uranium. Simply utilizing Russian and Kazakhi uranium, without snapping up American uranium, Russia could build thousands of nuclear weapons every single year. Putin may be aggressive, but would this be overkill?

Well, maybe Putin needs uranium for entities other than just Russia. After all, Russia is helping to proliferate nuclear technology to Iran by building the Bushehr “power plant.”

Indeed, in 2015 a Russian ship carried away Iranian nuclear products, and Kazakhstan then shipped Iran more uranium. Russia has plans to send Iran an additional 130 tons of uranium.

But the amount of uranium that Russia will send Iran is well under five percent of the uranium that the Kremlin produces in Russia proper every single year. Even if its assumed that Russia clandestinely proliferates uranium to Iran and other friends- perhaps, North Korea, where Russia has a long history of sending military, and even nuclear, technology- Russia has more than enough uranium.

Add into this puzzle the fact that Russia has plentiful amounts of fossil fuels to meet its energy needs without needing nuclear power. And the fact that Russia already has many nuclear weapons, indeed, the most nuclear weapons on earth.

If Russia has enough uranium to meet all its needs and then some, maybe Putin wanted to take uranium that America desperately needed. The idea was to gain leverage over Washington D.C..

The problem with this idea is that there simply is no scarcity of uranium. The World Nuclear Association states, “Uranium is not a rare element and occurs in potentially recoverable concentrations in many types of geological settings… There is therefore no reason to anticipate any shortage of uranium that will prevent conventional nuclear powers from playing an expanding role… for decades or even centuries to come.”

America already has many nuclear weapons, has no plans to proliferate uranium around the world, and is not dying to expand local nuclear energy production, especially when America’s fossil fuel industry is doing so well. America losing some legal control, over some of its uranium, does not provide Russia with significant extra leverage.

Something strange is going on here. Which shouldn’t be surprising given the players involved. It was once said of Gorbachev, “Even when he tells the truth he is lying.” Gorbachev was just a politician, not a politician and a KGB man, wrapped into one, like Putin.

Whatever message comes from Putin, the Kremlin, or the Kremlin troll-army, regarding the uranium and Hillary, it is not to be taken at face value. There is an ulterior motive.

So why did Putin want to pay massive amounts of money to Clinton-connected entities, buying uranium, which was not needed? This is tough to say for sure.

At the very least, it undermines the narrative that Putin hated Hillary, or as the New York Times reported, felt Hillary posed an “imminent threat.” The bottom line is, KGB men don’t enrich people they fear, and especially not to obtain something they don’t particularly need.