Germany just quietly approved a French-Russian nuclear fuel project on its own soil — one that critics say could hand Moscow a front-row seat to spy on sensitive European nuclear infrastructure.
The green light went to a joint venture between France's Framatome and Russia's state-owned Rosatom, based in the small town of Lingen in Lower Saxony.
And here's the kicker.
The environment minister who signed off? He openly said the deal is "totally wrong".
He just… couldn't legally stop it.
Rewind to March 2022.
Russian tanks were rolling into Ukraine. Sanctions were flying. Europe was scrambling to cut every energy cord to Moscow.
And right in that moment, Framatome's subsidiary ANF filed an application to team up with Rosatom to make fuel rods for Russian-designed reactors.
Four years later — approved. ✅
Why? One brutal loophole.
👉 Rosatom has escaped every single EU sanctions package since the war began.
Even the February 2026 package skipped it.
No sanctions = no legal grounds to say no.
German lawmakers are furious.
The Greens warned Moscow could harvest "information on very sensitive nuclear facilities on German soil".
Roderich Kiesewetter of Chancellor Merz's own CDU called it "dangerous to security" and demanded the federal government reverse it.
The ministry's safeguards read like a spy thriller checklist:
Critics say: escorted tours are not a firewall.
Europe is trying to divorce Russia. But it can't quite leave the bedroom.
19 VVER reactors are still humming across the EU — in Czechia, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria.
They were designed in the Soviet era. They need Soviet-shaped fuel. Hexagonal rods only a few places on Earth can make.
And Russia still controls a massive chunk of the global uranium supply — through its own reserves plus its grip on Kazakhstan.
Germany shut down its last nuclear reactor in 2023.
It's Ukraine's biggest European backer. It's on constant alert for Russian "hybrid warfare".
And yet — it just approved a Rosatom-linked plant on its own soil, because Brussels never had the stomach to sanction Russia's nuclear crown jewel.
The war didn't stop the deal.
The sanctions didn't stop the deal.
A hostile minister didn't stop the deal.
That's not policy failure. That's dependency in plain sight.
That's all for now!
