Modi’s controversial visit to Moscow — which coincided with Russia raining missiles down on a children’s hospital in Ukraine — is a sign that the West’s sanctions and attempts to isolate Putin over his war are having limited effect. But the choice of an electric car to get around in petroleum-rich Russia has other connotations, too: The Modi-Putin relationship, which strengthened under US and European sanctions on Russian oil and gas, has now gone green. And nuclear.
So, it’s betting big on selling nuclear abroad for income and influence, offering everything from conventional nuclear reactors, next-generation small modular reactors and a highly enriched uranium fuel known as HALEU, which no other country makes at any meaningful level as yet. The United States is aware of how big a problem this is.