Russia To Build Nuclear Power Plant In Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso’s military leaders have agreed to build a nuclear power plant with Russia in order to increase electricity supplies.

“The government of Burkina Faso has signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a nuclear power plant,” the government said in a statement.

The agreement was signed during the Russian Energy Week in Moscow, which Burkina Faso’s energy minister, Simon-Pierre Boussim, attended.

The document “fulfils the wish of the president of [Burkina] Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, expressed [in] July at the Russia-Africa summit during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin,” the statement said.

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Russia’s state atomic energy agency Rosatom said in its own statement that “the memorandum is the first document in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy between Russia and Burkina Faso.”

The nuclear power plant will help the country meet its energy needs, according to the statement, which added that the agreement was signed by energy and mines minister Simon-Pierre Boussim and Rosatom’s deputy director general Nikolay Spasskiy.

The agreement signed on Friday is the result of a request made to Russian President Vladimir Putin by Burkina Faso junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore during the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg in July.

Traore, who took power in a military coup in September 2022, has shifted closer to Russia as relations with its former colonial power France deteriorate, while Russia seeks to break Western isolation over the Ukraine conflict and expand its influence in Africa.