How Putin’s Russia Gained Control of a U.S. Uranium Mine

A Kalmar Contchamp reachstacker loads a container at a storage facility of the 7 DUF6 (depleted uranium hexafluoride) department, at the Ural Electrochemical Integrated Plant (UEIP), owned by the Rosatom State Corporation.

Photographer: Sorokin Donat/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis
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Since 2013, the nuclear energy arm of the Russian state has controlled 20 percent of America’s uranium production capacity.

Rosatom’s acquisition of Toronto-based miner Uranium One Inc. made the Russian agency, which also builds nuclear weapons, one the world’s top five producers of the radioactive metal and gave it ownership of a mine in Wyoming.