Greenpeace filmed about 10 radioactive-marked containers being loaded in Dunkirk and says the reprocessed uranium was bound for Russia for conversion and reuse. The NGO calls the trade "immoral" despite it being legal, and highlights EDF's €600 million 2018 recycling deal with a Rosatom unit. Greenpeace says this was the first observed reprocessed shipment in three years; France has previously ordered EDF to halt trade and is considering a domestic conversion facility.
Greenpeace Films French Reprocessed Uranium Sent to Russia — NGO Calls Trade "Immoral" Amid War
Greenpeace filmed about 10 radioactive-marked containers being loaded in Dunkirk and says the reprocessed uranium was bound for Russia for conversion and reuse. The NGO calls the trade "immoral" despite it being legal, and highlights EDF's €600 million 2018 recycling deal with a Rosatom unit. Greenpeace says this was the first observed reprocessed shipment in three years; France has previously ordered EDF to halt trade and is considering a domestic conversion facility.
03:26 AM, 11/17/2025Environment
Greenpeace documents shipment of reprocessed uranium from France to Russia
The environmental group Greenpeace said on Sunday that France has been sending reprocessed uranium to Russia for further treatment so the material can be reenriched and reused, despite Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The NGO filmed roughly 10 containers bearing radioactive labels being loaded onto a cargo vessel in the Channel port of Dunkirk.
According to Greenpeace, the Panamanian-registered ship Mikhail Dudin is regularly used to carry enriched or natural uranium from France to St. Petersburg. The group said this was the first observed consignment of reprocessed uranium in three years.
“It is not illegal, but it is immoral,” Pauline Boyer, head of Greenpeace France's nuclear campaign, told AFP. She urged Paris to end contracts with Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear company that Greenpeace says has occupied Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for three years.
French state-controlled Electricité de France (EDF) reportedly signed a €600 million deal in 2018 with Tenex, a Rosatom subsidiary, for recycling reprocessed uranium. Greenpeace said those recycling operations have not been affected by international sanctions related to the Ukraine war.
Rosatom operates the only facility known to perform critical stages of converting reprocessed uranium into enriched reprocessed uranium — a site at Seversk in Siberia. Uranium can be chemically reprocessed so it can be reenriched and used again; with global uranium prices rising, reprocessing is increasingly economical for power operators.
Greenpeace also said that only about 10% of the reenriched uranium returned to France is used at the Cruas nuclear power plant in southern France, the only station in the country able to accept enriched reprocessed fuel.
France’s energy ministry and EDF did not respond to AFP’s questions about the recent shipment or the broader trade. When Greenpeace first exposed the contracts after Russia’s 2022 invasion, France ordered EDF to halt uranium trade with Rosatom that year. In March 2024, Paris said it was seriously examining the possibility of building its own conversion facility to produce enriched reprocessed uranium domestically.
Context
This report raises political and ethical questions about commercial nuclear fuel arrangements with Russia while European governments consider or implement sanctions. Greenpeace frames the shipments as legal but morally problematic; officials have not publicly clarified whether the specific consignment observed in Dunkirk represents a resumption of trade or a previously contracted movement of material.