Dem Rep. Himes: Russia Fueling Reactors in Ukraine, Europe and American Uranium Can ‘Easily’ Replace It

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) argued that one step America could take to undercut Russia’s ability to wage war against Ukraine would be using American uranium to replace the Russian fuel that powers the nuclear reactors in Europe and Ukraine and that American uranium “could easily” replace Russian fuel as a source for those reactors.

Himes stated, “[Y]ou don’t even need all that many experts. Let me tell you two things that the prime minister said to us today that we could do right now: There’s a handful of sanctioned Russian banks. The prime minister told us that there [are] 200 Russian banks that are not sanctioned, that are still doing business with Europe. Now, some of them, of course, are doing the energy payment work. We could dial that back. We could come up with a structure that puts money going to Russia for energy into some kind of escrow or something gets hived off to rebuild Ukraine. Here’s an interesting one too: The prime minister made a point I hadn’t heard before, which is that Russia fuels the nuclear reactors of Ukraine, amongst other places, but of Europe, and that could easily be replaced by American uranium and other fuel for the nuclear reactors.”

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