At a meeting in Yangon, Russian and Myanmar junta officials entered into an agreement on Monday to cooperate on the development of Myanmar’s nuclear energy infrastructure.
The signatories of the new Intergovernmental Agreement on nuclear energy use were Myo Thein Kyaw, the junta’s science and technology minister; Thaung Han, the junta’s minister for electric power; and Aleksey Likhachev, general director of the Russian atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
The signing took place at the junta’s new Nuclear Technology Information Centre, which opened on the same day at the Yangon University’s extended campus in Hlaing Township, at the corner of Parami and Pyay roads.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing was present at the signing and the opening ceremony for the new information centre.
“Thanks to the cooperation of Rosatom, Myanmar will have to enhance the human resources related to the construction and running of a Small Modular Reactor in Myanmar and to produce qualified experts for respective sectors,” said an announcement on the information centre’s opening in the Global Light of Myanmar, a junta mouthpiece.
Rosatom released a statement on February 6 stating that the planned development of atomic energy in Myanmar is for “peaceful purposes.”
The agreement includes provisions for educating more Myanmar personnel in the use of nuclear technology, steps towards both countries’ adoption of a shared regulatory framework for using nuclear energy, and authorisation of a potential project to build “small nuclear power plants” (SNPP)—also called small-capacity nuclear power plants—in Myanmar.
Rosatom has built one SNPP within Russia—the Akademik Lomonosov floating power station in the Chukotka region—and has initiated projects to build more in Russia and Africa. The Russian corporation describes SNPPs as ideal for areas with underdeveloped electric grid infrastructure where building higher-capacity plants would be impractical.
“The introduction of nuclear technologies implies a powerful impetus for the development of natural sciences, education and training of highly qualified personnel. We appreciate the fact that Myanmar has given preference to Russian nuclear technology,” Likhachev said in remarks at the signing.
While constituted as a corporation, Rosatom is state-owned and vested with the authority to enforce compliance with international agreements that Russia has ratified on nuclear energy use and the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
One of the junta’s reasons for seeking to build up Myanmar’s electrical energy infrastructure may be the frequency of power outages since the 2021 coup, although the junta has denied that the blackouts were caused by an energy shortage.
Since seizing power in February 2021, the military junta has faced condemnation from abroad for the growing violence in Myanmar, and has eagerly sought Russia’s support on the international stage. The junta was one of the few regimes in the world to give full-throated support to Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.
Russia has been a crucial supplier of arms and military equipment to the junta, including fighter planes and armoured vehicles. The Russian truck manufacturing company Kamaz—which makes a vehicle for launching surface-to-air missiles used by the Myanmar military—opened talks with the junta last year about moving some of their production operations to Myanmar.
Cooperation on nuclear energy has been part of Myanmar military officials’ efforts to develop closer relations with Russia since before the February 2021 coup. The previous military regime headed by Than Shwe agreed to Russia’s construction of a reactor in Myanmar in 2007 for research purposes, and Rosatom confirmed in 2016 that hundreds of Myanmar military officers had undergone training on nuclear technologies in Russia.
