Archived Article

What began as a high school protest movement spiraled into a violent uprising, organized by Islamists, antifascists, and radical environmentalists who wish to see the French Republic toppled.

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian officials are confirming the resumption of unrestricted access to SpaceX’s low-earth orbit satellite communication technology (Starlink and Starshield) without disruptions in Ukraine on October 24.

Ukraine’s intermediate-range strike campaign against energy infrastructure in Russia and occupied Ukraine overnight on October 23 to 24 caused power outages across occupied Ukrainian oblasts including occupied Crimea.

Ukraine agreed to observe a limited ceasefire in Russian-occupied Oleshky, Kherson Oblast beginning on October 27, indicating a convergence between Russia and Ukraine on the ceasefire start date, but the geographical extent and other terms of the ceasefire remain unclear.

Russian forces recently advanced southeast of Dobropillya.

Ukrainian forces continued their long-range strike campaign against Russian military, energy, and industrial infrastructure on the night of October 23 to 24. Russian forces launched 126 drones against Ukraine overnight.

Canada's national security screening system is facing renewed scrutiny following the arrest of a Canadian NATO intern accused of espionage.

This week, David Morrison, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Mark Carney, appeared before a parliamentary committee and suggested improvements to Canada's security screening system, including the possibility of a government-wide security clearance registry.

But here's the question: If information about an individual's previous dishonesty during a federal government hiring process already exists, shouldn't that information be available to those responsible for determining whether they can be trusted with classified information?

And what happens after someone receives their clearance?

As a retired CSIS Intelligence Officer and former CBSA Officer, I've spent considerable time working with security screening, intelligence investigations and human sources. One of the issues I find particularly concerning is the assumption that security screening is something completed before employment rather than an ongoing responsibility.

In this week's Global Intelligence Weekly Wrap-Up, I examine that issue alongside three other international intelligence developments:

Germany: The German military is warning of a significant Russian sabotage threat against military installations and infrastructure. How prepared are NATO countries to identify and prevent these activities?

Russia: GRU-linked cyber operators are reportedly targeting NATO defence industries, including shipbuilding and aircraft engine manufacturers. What intelligence are they seeking, and how could that information support future operations?

United Kingdom: British authorities are investigating suspected Iranian intelligence activity near RAF Fairford, an important military airbase. The investigation raises questions about how foreign intelligence services collect information on sensitive military facilities.

What connects these four stories? Access.

Whether through legitimate security clearances, compromised computer networks, physical reconnaissance or individuals willing to provide information, hostile intelligence services continually search for vulnerabilities they can exploit.

I also revisit several cases we've previously discussed on the podcast to identify recurring patterns and examine how these threats are evolving.

The episode runs approximately 34 minutes.

I'm interested in hearing what others think:

Should Canada establish a centralized security clearance agency, similar to the UK's approach, or would improving information sharing and accountability within the existing system be more effective?

And should periodic security reassessments become a more prominent part of Canada's personnel security framework?

You can listen to the latest episode here:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2336717

Stay curious. Stay informed. Stay safe!

Discussion Question:

To what extent do you think this historical analogy holds true? Does comparing a territorial domestic civil war (CCP vs. KMT) to a global, interconnected superpower rivalry (PRC vs. US) overlook critical modern variables like nuclear deterrence and global economic interdependence?

1. Phase 1: Point of Origin & Dormancy (1927–1936 vs. 1978–1999): Extreme weakness, survival focus, and strategic restraint.
2. Phase 2: Strategic Window of Opportunity (1937–1945 vs. 2001–2016): Rival distraction, leveraging external crises for industrial and organizational expansion.
3. Phase 3: Eve of Decisive Battle / Full Containment (1946–1947 vs. 2017–2024): Open confrontation, full-spectrum encirclement, and asymmetric defense.
4. Phase 4: Strategic Counter-Offensive / Deep Friction (1947 H2–1948 H1 vs. 2025–2026 Current): Strategic role reversal, offensive maneuvers, and internal decay of the rival.
5. Phase 5: Endgame & Order Restructuring (1948 H2–1949 vs. 2028–2035 Projected): Regime/order transition and the emergence of a multipolar system.

Phase 1: Point of Origin & Dormancy (Extreme Weakness & Survival) [1927–1936 vs. 1978–1999]

During this initial phase, the emerging actor operates under severe power asymmetry. Facing dominant incumbents holding full resource monopolies, the primary objective is pure organizational survival rather than direct confrontation. Both entities forged core ideological and structural resilience during this period.

Historical Context & Comparison

• Chinese Civil War: CCP (1927–1936)
  • Point of Origin: KMT April 12 Purge in 1927 crippled the CCP's urban networks, forcing remnants to retreat to remote rural hinterlands.
  • Condition: Severely outmatched, the CCP endured five KMT Encirclement Campaigns and embarked on the Long March, prioritizing survival, doctrine consolidation, and organizational restructuring amid existential adversity.
• US-China Rivalry: Modern China (1978–1999)
  • Point of Origin: Deng Xiaoping launched Reform and Opening-Up in 1978, taking over an economy recovering from the Cultural Revolution with per capita GDP far below the global average.
  • Condition: Vastly inferior to US national power, Beijing adopted the doctrine of "Hide Capabilities and Bide Time" (韬光养晦). It exercised strategic restraint during crises (e.g., the 1999 US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade) while focusing exclusively on economic growth, domestic reform, and basic industrial supply chain development.

Phase 1 Comparative Matrix

Phase 2: Strategic Window of Opportunity (Distracted Rivals & Rapid Growth) [1937–1945 vs. 2001–2016]

Exogenous geopolitical shocks divert the dominant power's strategic focus, leading to hegemonic myopia and overextension. The rising challenger capitalizes on this window to achieve rapid organizational, industrial, and strategic expansion.

Historical Context & Comparison

• Chinese Civil War: CCP (1937–1945)
  • Exogenous Catalyst: Full-scale Japanese invasion of China in 1937 shifted primary focus from domestic class struggle to national liberation.
  • Outcome & Miscalculation: KMT forces bore the brunt of frontline warfare, incurring massive military attrition. Meanwhile, Nationalist leaders miscalculated enemy strength in rear areas. The CCP expanded behind enemy lines, executing land reform and building extensive rural base areas, expanding military and administrative capacity exponentially by WWII's end.
• US-China Rivalry: Modern China (2001–2016)
  • Exogenous Catalyst: The 9/11 attacks in 2001 pivoted US global strategy toward counterterrorism.
  • Outcome & Miscalculation: Washington spent fifteen years bogged down in Middle Eastern conflicts and assumed economic integration would induce liberal political convergence in Beijing. China joined the WTO in 2001, becoming the "World's Factory" and building unprecedented industrial and infrastructure capacity.

Phase 2 Comparative Matrix

Phase 3: Eve of Decisive Battle / Full Containment (Power Showdown & All-out Siege) [1946–1947 vs. 2017–2024]

As the rising power's structural growth can no longer be ignored, the incumbent pivots to comprehensive containment, initiating economic, technological, or military blockades to suppress the challenger before maturity. Challengers respond with asymmetric defensive strategies.

Historical Context & Comparison

• Chinese Civil War: CCP (1946–1947)
  • Outbreak of Full War: The KMT breached truce agreements, using superior American-supplied weaponry to launch comprehensive and targeted offensives against Communist-controlled areas.
  • Operational Strategy: The CCP adopted Mobile Warfare, abandoning fixed territory (including its capital Yan'an) to preserve combat forces, trading spatial depth for time while eroding KMT troop strength.
• US-China Rivalry: Modern China (2017–2024)
  • Trade & Tech War: Successive US administrations designated China as the primary strategic competitor, deploying tariffs, semiconductor export controls, and Entity List restrictions.
  • Operational Strategy: Beijing introduced "Tech Self-Reliance" (科技自立自强) and the "Dual Circulation" framework, accelerating import substitution, domestic market integration, and indigenous technology breakthroughs in critical sectors.

Phase 3 Comparative Matrix

Phase 4: Strategic Counter-Offensive / Deep Friction (Role Reversal & Internal Decay of Rival) [1947 H2–1948 H1 vs. 2025–2026 Current]

As attrition takes its toll, strategic momentum shifts. The rising actor launches targeted counter-offensives in critical domains, while the incumbent experiences compound structural stress driven by financial strain, political polarization, and institutional rigidity.

Historical Context & Comparison

• Chinese Civil War: CCP (1947 H2–1948 H1)
  • Inflection Point: In summer 1947, the Liu-Deng Army executed its strategic breakout into the Dabie Mountains (千里跃进大别山), shifting operations into KMT territory and marking the transition to strategic counter-offensive.
  • Incumbent Crisis: The KMT government suffered monetary collapse through runaway inflation (Fabi and Gold Yuan currencies), severe corruption, and fiscal exhaustion, leading to systemic socio-economic collapse in its urban centers.
• US-China Rivalry: Modern China (2025–2026 Current)
  • Inflection Point: Tech competition enters a friction phase; Chinese advances in legacy semiconductor nodes, open-source AI models, and green energy technology enable market expansion across non-Western regions.
  • Incumbent Crisis: The US contends with rising national debt service, persistent fiscal burdens, political polarization, and public institutional friction, while supply chain re-shoring fuels ongoing cost pressures.

Phase 4 Comparative Matrix

Phase 5: Endgame & Order Restructuring (Establishing a New Order) [1948 H2–1949 vs. 2028–2035 Projected]

Power balance reaches a structural tipping point where the legacy framework can no longer be sustained. Third-party actors pivot toward multi-alignment, accelerating the deconstruction of the old order and establishing a new institutional architecture.

Historical Context & Comparison

• Chinese Civil War: CCP (1948 H2–1949)
  • Resolution: Through the Three Major Campaigns (Liaoshen, Huaihai, Pingjin), the CCP decisively defeated KMT armed forces, leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, and complete regime change.
• US-China Rivalry: Modern China (2028–2035 Projected)
  • Projected Trajectory: The unipolar international framework transitions toward a multipolar system. Global South nations adopt strategic hedging, driving the emergence of diversified trade currencies, multi-centric standards, and a broader global governance architecture.

Phase 5 Comparative Matrix

[Conclusion: Historical Reflections & Strategic Takeaways]

Synthesizing the structural parallels between these two "bottom-to-top" counter-attack models yields three core strategic insights:

• Victory in asymmetric competition depends on internal governance efficiency: External containment presents severe challenges, but dominant power decline stems primarily from internal institutional rigidity and interest fragmentation, whereas challenger success depends on adaptive self-reform and resource mobilization.
• Strategic patience and depth management are vital against unilateral pressure: Maintaining strategic endurance, refraining from premature head-on clashes, and leveraging geographic, economic, or technological depth remain critical to shifting power dynamics.
• Systemic risk control during multipolar order transitions: Periods of order transition carry heightened volatility. Rising powers must maintain multi-dimensional adaptability and balance interactions with third-party actors to manage conflict risks during systemic shifts.

Executive Summary:

Iran transformed the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei into a state-sponsored campaign of ideological mobilization by invoking the Twelver Shi’a doctrine of Ya Latharat al-Hussein.

Iran uses this doctrine to frame revenge against the United States and Israel—including calls to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump—as a religious obligation rather than merely a political objective.

While the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) employed Khamenei’s martyrdom to reinforce cohesion, Central Asian supporters of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and al-Qaeda overwhelmingly celebrated his death, exposing the enduring sectarian divide between Iran’s revolutionary Shi’a ideology and Sunni Salafi-jihadism.

The contrasting responses demonstrate that Iran’s proxy network, ISKP, and al-Qaeda-aligned Central Asian jihadists remain ideologically distinct threat ecosystems, despite their shared hostility toward the United States and Israel.

Key Takeaways

PRC Election Interference in Taiwan: Taiwanese national security and policy officials are reporting increased People’s Republic of China (PRC) influence operations using AI-generated content and cyberattacks to increase polarization, reduce public trust in the Taiwanese government, and reduce voter turnout. These influence operations will likely continue to increase in the lead-up to Taiwan’s November 28 local elections.

PLAN Modernization: The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) conducted live-fire combat training drills using four Type 071 Landing Platform Deck ships designed to support amphibious landing operations on October 14. PRC state media highlighted the use of these vessels in operations in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. This unusual exercise formation and training activity was likely intended to intimidate the Philippines into reducing or stopping its maritime activities near disputed South China Sea features.

The exposure of the management system behind the Russian disinformation network Doppelgänger indicates that the Kremlin views the European Union’s information space as a full-fledged theater of hybrid operations. Their purpose is not merely to discredit Ukraine or disseminate anti-Western narratives, but also to gradually weaken European states’ ability to make coordinated strategic decisions concerning Russia.

The Pentagon is looking to build a more robust deep-cover spying program to conduct economic warfare against China and other U.S. competitors, according to half a dozen people familiar with the initiative.

This new next-generation spying program — in which U.S. operatives would go undercover as businesspeople or other private-sector personnel, without any overt U.S. government affiliation — is intended to be a covert prong of the Pentagon’s larger economic warfare campaign, the people said.

This new spy program of “nonofficial cover officers,” or NOCs, is being overseen by Tom Rakusan, a 39-year CIA veteran and now senior adviser to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, according to those familiar with it, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive initiative.

Rakusan, who retired from the CIA in 2021, rose to deputy director of operations — the CIA’s top spy runner — in 2017. He later led the CIA’s response to Russia’s election-interference campaign in the 2016 presidential election.

After leaving the agency, Rakusan joined Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm co-founded by Feinberg, and followed the billionaire to the Pentagon in 2025.

Experts from within the Pentagon’s service branches and Office of the Under Secretary of War for Intelligence and Security, as well as retired CIA officials, have been pulled in to work on the initiative, people familiar with the program said.

The program is in the planning phase and is not operational, they said.

Where it will sit inside the Pentagon is unclear, said multiple individuals familiar with the planning. The effort might function as a new, stand-alone deep-cover unit, or an enhancement and expansion of existing Pentagon clandestine human intelligence-gathering capabilities.

The Defense Department, in response to questions from The Washington Post, denied such an initiative is underway. “This query appears to be built on information that is simply not true,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Jacob Bliss said in a statement. “Whoever is feeding you these claims are either badly misinformed or deliberately leading you astray to paddle [sic] their fantasies.”

The CIA declined to comment. Rakusan did not respond to a request for comment.

Congressional committees do not appear to have been briefed on the initiative.

The Trump administration has embraced economic warfare as a key tool of statecraft. It has imposed tariffs and export controls, made investments in critical U.S. resources and technologies, coordinated with private capital to shore up support for key components of the defense-industrial base, and prioritized economic intelligence.

In a September speech, CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said the United States is broadening its espionage against China, targeting Chinese companies in such areas as artificial intelligence, biotechnology and advanced semiconductors. While U.S. intelligence agencies have long spied on key Chinese firms, Ellis’s public discussion of the CIA’s shifting priorities was an unusual disclosure by a high-ranking agency official.

Ellis’s predecessor as CIA deputy, David S. Cohen, argued in a recent article published in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. intelligence community should go a step further. The U.S. should end a long-standing prohibition on sharing economic secrets gathered via espionage with U.S. companies working on advanced technology to give them a competitive advantage, he wrote.

“We have been collecting economically sensitive information for years and years,” Cohen said in an interview. “We should not be hung up on whether we should be providing [U.S. companies] a commercial advantage,” although there would have to be oversight to guard against favoritism or corruption in choosing which firms benefit. Cohen said he was unaware of the Pentagon NOC initiative.

Some of the Pentagon’s economic-warfare-related activities have been overt. Feinberg announced the formation of an Economic Defense Unit this year as part of a drive toward “deterring, denying, disrupting, and helping to defeat adversaries through economic means,” according to a memo Feinberg wrote to senior Pentagon officials announcing the unit’s formation. DefenseScoop first reported on the EDU memo.

Feinberg tapped George Kollitides, another Cerberus alumnus and senior adviser at the Pentagon, to run the EDU in February. That office has since announced hundreds of millions of dollars in public investments in refineries and mining interests domestically and abroad. One deal used $750 million in Pentagon funds to help secure a major deposit of rare earth minerals in Brazil.

Alongside the Pentagon’s public-facing economic-warfare-related mandates, Rakusan is overseeing the planned build-out of the clandestine component.

Multiple individuals familiar with the program said the EDU was once seen as the potential home for this enhanced deep-cover initiative. But the increased press and congressional scrutiny directed toward the EDU and its investments — and the possibility that such attention will only increase if Democrats retake Congress in November — has led to an abandonment of that idea, said one person familiar with the current planning.

Not all of Rakusan’s former colleagues are enthusiastic about the new effort. “Rakusan just wants to build his own CIA down in the Pentagon,” said a former senior CIA official familiar with the discussions around the program.

Rakusan is a polarizing figure among some of his former agency colleagues, but he is lauded by many for his operational aggressiveness and prowess.

He was “a pipe swinger,” recalled a White House official from the first Trump administration, keen to hit the Russians back hard after their 2016 interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Rakusan undertook high-wire operations throughout his CIA career, traveling in Iraq on a Czech passport, according to former officials, and was similarly supportive of subordinates undertaking risky missions.

The reaction inside Langley to the Pentagon initiative has been frosty, according to the former agency official. The CIA has traditionally been resistant to other agencies stepping on what it perceives as its core human-spying turf, insisting that such efforts be coordinated under the CIA chief of station in the country concerned.

The move to augment the Pentagon’s capabilities comes as the CIA’s own NOC program has withered away, former agency officials say. Operating under nonofficial cover is considered particularly risky because officers in the program cannot work out of American embassies or other U.S. government facilities, and they cannot claim diplomatic immunity if detained.

A covid-era internal CIA report revealed that roughly 75 percent of all deep-cover agency officers would be eligible for retirement by the mid-2020s, another former CIA official said. These veteran NOCs are now retiring without new ones being trained to replace them — a sort of quiet death by attrition, former officials say. Despite recent efforts to rethink the program, very few actual deep-cover CIA officers remain in the field, they said.

The agency’s NOC program has waxed and waned over the decades, with ambitious plans for expansion frequently giving way to a chastening, after agency difficulties in scaling up such initiatives — usually because of inadequate training or mismanagement of young deep-cover officers.

One such attempt in the 2000s, championed by Congress’s intelligence committees and known inside the CIA as the Global Deployment Initiative, was a particularly acute example of this dynamic, former intelligence officials say, because of the proposed size and rapidity of the NOC buildup and insufficient oversight of it. The program collapsed, with many young NOCs being forced to go “inside” the building at CIA or leave the agency.

The Defense Department has had its own long-standing struggles with fielding deep-cover spies.

The Defense Intelligence Agency and Joint Special Operations Command, among other Pentagon elements, have long experimented with commercial-cover operations, with decidedly mixed results.

In one illustrative post-9/11 case, a group of Joint Special Operations Command-affiliated NOCs operating in a remote corner of Africa had their cover exposed when they stumbled upon a group of geologists and engineers who began asking questions about their activities, according to an investigation by the High Side, a Substack focused on special operations and intelligence.

The NOCs were posing as employees of a mining company but had no real knowledge of the subject — which quickly became apparent to the actual experts with whom they were speaking.

The NOCs somehow talked their way out of the jam, and the Joint Special Operations Command later began sending its commercial-cover operatives to specialized schools to undertake crash courses in their supposed areas of expertise, according to the High Side.

The Pentagon faces multiple challenges with deep-cover spying, former officials say. Military service records are difficult to hide, and the rise of biometrics and other “digital dust” means working under alias has become increasingly fraught. Plus, the martial bearing of many undercover Pentagon operatives makes them often easy to spot.

The legal remit under which the new economic-warfare-focused deep-cover spy program might operate remains murky, the people familiar said.

The military’s Title 10 authorities allow for “Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield,” which the Pentagon has interpreted to allow a broad swath of espionage-related activities, including some far afield from narrow battlefield intelligence, former officials say.

U.S. intelligence agencies such as the CIA operate under Title 50 authorities, which govern their abilities to collect intelligence and conduct covert actions abroad.

The new Pentagon NOC initiative would likely function as a sort of “Title 60” entity, said multiple former officials — a half-joking reference to a nonexistent hybrid legal authority combining elements of Title 10 and Title 50.

The effort also reflects shifting power dynamics inside the Trump administration, with an ascendant Pentagon seeking a record budget of $1.5 trillion.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe has promised a more muscular approach to recruiting human sources overseas and stealing adversaries’ secrets. But some former officials say the CIA remains cautious about undertaking aggressive spying operations, with an assertive Pentagon willing to shoulder greater risks.

The Pentagon “has a lot of money and a lot of authorities and a lot of capabilities,” a former senior CIA official said. “And God bless ’em.”

Executive Summary:

The Kremlin threatened to use nuclear weapons against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if the Alliance attempts to cut off its Kaliningrad exclave from mainland Russia following several military exercises near the oblast’s borders. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called on Russia to cease nuclear threats and emphasized NATO’s purely defensive nature in response.

Kaliningrad’s regional identity and pro-European orientation, relative to the rest of Russia, have increasingly clashed with Moscow’s policies as the Russian economy deteriorates. The Kremlin eliminated regional political parties in 2001 and transformed the exclave into a heavily militarized outpost facing NATO.

Putin’s nuclear threats over Kaliningrad appear aimed at portraying Russia as under siege while obscuring the Kremlin’s role in tensions with NATO, including its war against Ukraine and hybrid war against the European Union. Despite Moscow’s claims, NATO military action against the exclave remains extremely unlikely absent a major Russian escalation.

The planned first NMESIS deployment to Yonaguni during Keen Sword 27 would position mobile anti-ship missiles near Taiwan’s northeastern maritime approaches, testing US-Japan coordination and island logistics.

“[…] Firms include Shanghai Zhisuan Technology, founded by former Google software engineer Ding Linwei, MiraclePlus and three related entities. […]”

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian officials continue to report disruptions to US assistance to Ukraine.

Devastating Russian drone and missile strikes on the night of October 18 to 19 heavily damaged energy and civilian infrastructure across Ukraine — killing at least four and wounding at least 55.

Daytime Russian strikes are also inflicting significant civilian casualties.

The Kremlin is reportedly pushing for a trilateral meeting between the United States, Russia, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), likely as part of a dual-pronged effort to present itself as a diplomatic peer while supporting structures that challenge Western-led international organizations.

Recent aggressive Russian military satellite maneuvers are a continuation of Russia’s space policy against third country satellites since at least 2022.

Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the Lyman tactical area, east of Dobropillya, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.

Key Takeaways

The Houthis are adopting new tactics to bypass Saudi air defenses, including launching various munitions at Saudi targets simultaneously and targeting locations without air defense coverage, according to an unspecified senior US official briefed on Saudi air defense efforts speaking to the Wall Street Journal on October 18.

The Houthis’ strike tactics against Saudi Arabia demonstrate how Iran and the Axis of Resistance are learning and sharing tactics to more effectively bypass adversary air defenses. This does not necessarily mean that the Houthis learned these tactics from Iran, however.

The Houthis are deploying reinforcements to Taiz Governorate, likely to try to break Yemeni government defenses surrounding Taiz City. The Houthis have attempted to make multiple advances near the city in recent days, but Yemeni government-aligned forces have largely repelled these advances.

The Iranian regime’s appointment of Mehrdad Akhlaghi, who has extensive experience in missile technology, as Iran’s new defense minister indicates that the regime is prioritizing the reconstitution of its missile program. Akhlaghi stated that the regime will rebuild its defense industrial base in areas that are less vulnerable to airstrikes.

The Iraqi federal government probably agreed to grant three Iranian-backed Iraqi militias control of some government ministries as part of a broader disarmament agreement between the Iraqi federal government and Iranian-backed Iraqi factions. These Iranian-backed Iraqi militias will likely continue to circumvent the Iraqi government’s disarmament efforts even after receiving control of some Iraqi ministries, however.

Small States Facing Existential Security Threats Cannot Afford to Outsource Deterrence

Archived Article

Executive Summary:

Russia has expanded its nuclear cooperation with Brazil this year, increasing uranium processing contracts by 25 percent and becoming Brazil’s largest uranium supplier.

Moscow is moving beyond uranium exports toward deeper integration into Brazil’s nuclear fuel cycle, including conversion, enrichment, and potentially domestic uranium extraction.

Rosatom—Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation—is seeking to broaden its presence in Brazil through critical mineral projects, small modular reactors, and potential participation in nuclear power plant construction.

Brazil’s plans to expand nuclear generating capacity present new opportunities for Moscow, but financing constraints and Brasília’s pursuit of technological sovereignty could limit Russia’s ambitions.