Why United States is not banning Uranium import from Russia? Here's all you need to know

Maintaining that the war in Ukraine is a threat to his nation's national security, US president Joe Biden banned the import of energy products from Russia on Tuesday. This included crude oil, petroleum, petroleum fuels, oils, and products of their distillation, liquefied natural gas, coal and coal products. Moreover, all citizens of the US were prohibited from making any new investment in the energy sector in Russia. However, the exclusion of uranium in the list of banned imports from Russia has led to considerable speculation.

The rationale behind US' decision 

An extremely heavy metal, Uranium is widely used as a fuel in nuclear reactors and helps generate electricity. As per the US Energy Information Administration which is a principal agency of the US Federal Statistical System, owners and operators of US nuclear power reactors purchased 48.9 million pounds of uranium in 2020. US' reluctance to ban the import of uranium is probably linked to the fact that Russia and its allies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan accounted for 16%, 22% and 8% of the country's Uranium purchases in 2020.

According to the World Nuclear Association, Russia was the 7th largest producer of uranium globally having produced 2846 tonnes of uranium in the same year. On the other hand, the US does not produce or process uranium currently even though Texas and Wyoming have large reserves of this metal. While Australia and Canada have large deposits of Uranium as well, Russian supplies are cheaper thereby facilitating low electricity prices in the US. Reportedly, the nuclear power industry in the US has also been lobbying the White House to allow the import of uranium owing to the dependence on Russia. Interestingly, uranium production in Russia is controlled by Rosatom, a state-run company formed by Vladimir Putin in 2007. 

Russia-Ukraine war

The tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated on February 21 after Vladimir Putin recognised the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic. Located in eastern Ukraine, these regions have been under the control of Russia-backed separatists since 2014. The situation took a turn for the worse after the Russian President formally declared a military operation in Ukraine three days later targeted at demilitarisation and denazification of the country. While the US and other European countries have imposed a range of sanctions on Russia, the latter has refused to relent. 

Two days earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed that his country will stop its special operation if Ukraine acknowledges Crimea as Russian territory, recognises the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states and changes its Constitution to reject any intention to enter any bloc. Meanwhile, Russia declared a ceasefire in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol from 10 am (Moscow time) today to allow the evacuation of civilians and foreign citizens from the war-hit nation. This came even as the third round of Russia-Ukraine talks held in Belarus failed to yield the expected results.