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Iran and Russia have agreed to a $25 billion project to build four nuclear power plants in Tehran, according to Iranian state media reports on Friday. This announcement comes just hours before the anticipated reinstatement of broad United Nations sanctions on Iran.
The deal, signed between Iran’s Hormoz company and Russia’s Rosatom, targets the construction of these four nuclear facilities in Sirik, Hormozgan. Currently, Iran operates only one nuclear power plant in Bushehr in the south, with a 1,000 MW capacity, which supplies only a small portion of the country’s energy needs.
Each new plant is expected to have a capacity of approximately 1,255 MW, although specific timelines for completion have not been disclosed.
This development occurs amidst the impending re-imposition of snapback sanctions triggered by European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, accusing Iran of breaching its commitments. Britain, France, and Germany activated these sanctions last month.
During a Security Council session, China and Russia proposed extending negotiations by another six months through a draft resolution, but the proposal is unlikely to gather sufficient support.
Western nations have long accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, charges Tehran firmly denies, asserting its right to maintain a civilian nuclear energy program. Since the U.S. withdrew unilaterally from the nuclear agreement in 2018, Iran has begun scaling back its commitments under the deal. Efforts to negotiate a new agreement were ongoing but were disrupted in June by unprecedented Israeli strikes on Iran, which sparked a brief 12-day conflict involving the United States.
Historically, Iran signed a nuclear energy agreement with Russia in 1993 to help build the Bushehr plant after Germany withdrew from a similar project following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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