IN-DEPTH: Russia, Burma Further Ties With Nuclear Energy Deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing on the sidelines of the 2022 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on September 7, 2022. (Valery Sharifulin/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)

The Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation, Rosatom, has recently signed a few MOUs with the Burma Junta. This includes a deal in June to probe the feasibility of building 372 MW of wind farms and the inauguration in February of a nuclear power information center as a step toward developing atomic power.

Both Russia and the strife-torn Burma (also known as Myanmar) are currently subjected to rigorous sanctions, and experts told The Epoch Times that previously the two nations were just good friends, but the military takeover in Burma and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pulled both closer for strategic cooperation.

Burma’s military, called the Tatmadaw, usurped power from a democratically elected government and detained government leaders, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, on Feb. 1, 2021.

In response, the U.S. State Department early this year imposed sanctions on Burma’s military regime’s six individuals and three entities including senior leadership of Burma’s Ministry of Energy, Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), and Burma’s Air Force, as well as an arms dealer and a family member of a previously designated business associate of the military.

“The junta has a limited number of partners on the world stage and, as a result, is counting on the few to project itself as a regional player,” Akhil Ramesh, a senior resident fellow at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum, told The Epoch Times in an email. “While it claims the nuclear center is for civil nuclear initiatives, the junta also wants to capitalize on the heft of having a nuclear information center.”

The head of the military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, met with Alexey Evgenievich Likhachev, Rosatom director general,  at the newly opened Nuclear Technology Information Center in Burma’s largest city, Yangon on Feb. 6, according to Global New Light, a Burma state media.

The two leaders signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on cooperation in the field of the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Burma and Rosatom had earlier signed a preliminary agreement in 2015, and the Southeast Asian nation hopes to build and operate a reactor under it.

The two sides on July 11 had also signed memorandums of understanding in Moscow on nuclear energy, training and promotion of public understanding of atomic power. Rosatom also organized Mynama’s first science festival along with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Burma from June 28-30 at the Information Center for Nuclear Technologies and the Yangon Technological University.

Dr. Nishakant Ojha, a geopolitical analyst based in New Delhi, told The Epoch Times in an email that the Burmese military junta has drawn attention to itself as Russia’s most loyal post-invasion partner in Asia.

“At the same time, Russia has readily supported Burma’s dictatorship in a variety of contexts, both diplomatically and, most importantly, by providing it with armaments.”

According to a report by Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma, Burma’s military has imported at least $1 billion in arms and other material primarily from, Russia and China, since it staged a coup in February 2021.

The imports from Russia include Russian-made Mi-35 helicopters, MiG-29 fighter jets, and Yak-130, and these have been used to conduct frequent air strikes that have devastated schools, medical facilities, homes and other civilian sites, according to Andrews.

Dr. Ojha said Russia and the Burma junta are currently getting ready to have more robust economic and commercial interactions.

“In the midst of Naypyitaw’s battles to suppress domestic rebellion and establish international legitimacy, Russia has handed the city of Naypyitaw [Burma’s capital] a lifeline, further antagonizing nations who are advocating for Myanmar’s return to democratic rule. The West is concerned that Moscow may utilize these steps and as a tool for the purpose of misdirecting the sanctions,” he said.

The opening of a nuclear information center and the signing of an intergovernmental cooperation agreement, were most likely all part of the junta’s attempt to promote its relations with Russia, according to Dr. Ojha.

“In my opinion, the implementation of this plan, when the country has barely enough electricity, is just a contrived economic and geopolitical strategy moving to expand the scope of cooperation between Russia and Burma, and I don’t think it should be done,” he said.

Burma has faced massive power blackouts since Sep. 2022 across the country including Yangon and Mandalay, the major business hubs and power generation decreased from 3,711 MW in October 2021 to 2,665 MW in March 2022, according to the International Trade Administration.

Commander-in-Chief of Burma's armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, attends the IX Moscow conference on International Security in Moscow, on June 23, 2021. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AFP via Getty Images)

Burma’s Geo-Strategic Location

Experts said Russia’s core interest is Burma’s geo-strategic location in the Indian Ocean is also responsible for increasing ties between the two sanction-battling countries, and the current context has opened multiple opportunities for both.

“The role of the strategic partner who may be exploited economically and geopolitically—the location of the nation [Burma]—is the most valid point of interest for the Russian counterpart,” said Dr. Ojha.

“This is because Myanmar is located in Southeast Asia. When both nations are subjected to the phase of rigorous sanctions, their collaboration will not be limited to nuclear technology alone; rather, it will expand into other fields, including commerce, tourism, and others.”

Global New Light reports that Burma’s Industry Minister met Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade on July 11 during an International Industrial Exhibition in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg and discussed Russia-Burma cooperation, steel production, pharmaceutical co-production, yarn and fabric manufacturing, cement production, and production of medical support equipment.

It’s understood, according to Ojha, that strategically the scope of the Nuclear Technology Information Centre in Yangon will be leveraged in different application sectors, and sooner or later, the military will be then the center point in it.

After ten years of heavy reliance on China as its primary weaponry supplier, Burma’s is eager to diversify its supplies to meet the evolving warfare, he said.

This year’s deals have also raised questions if Burma would turn into the next North Korea and threaten regional security and if Russia has China’s backup for the new deals. The experts have disagreed on both points.

“They are farfetched,” said Ramesh about fears concerning Burma becoming the next North Korea.

Ojha said that North Korea and Burma are two of the fourteen countries that share a border with communist China, but both share different equations with Beijing. North Korea is completely economically dependent on China and this has allowed it to continue supporting its own nascent economy without worrying about being abandoned by the global community.

“It is abundantly obvious that North Korea’s proportional influence over China is of a far more important magnitude than that of Myanmar,” he said.

Burma provides China with crucial access to the Indian Ocean, not just for the shipment of goods from China’s landlocked southern regions but also for the possibility of establishing military outposts or listening posts in the country, however Burma doesn’t exert the same strategic influence on China as North Korea does, according to Ojha.

“As a result, the authorities of Myanmar have had the impression that they are obligated to lean towards western forces in order to prevent their country from becoming the twenty third Chinese province,” he said.

Ramesh believes that China’s role in Burma’s nuclear ambitions is quite limited despite Beijing playing a significant role in Burma’s economy and trade.

“The junta has counted on primarily, Russia for its defense, security and nuclear ambitions,” said Ramesh.

Ojha said that when a civilian administration ruled over Burma there was no assurance that it would comply with Chinese agendas which the earlier Military junta supported and it’s quite likely that the Chinese communist which are known for quashing democratic movements inside its own borders would support that inside Burma.

“It is impossible to completely discount the possibility that China is playing a hidden-mask game with the aim of transforming Myanmar into a nuclear power and attaining this goal,” he said.