The military chiefs of Burkina Faso have agreed to collaborate with Russia on the construction of a nuclear power plant to boost electricity supplies.

 

Burkina Faso’s government announced in a statement that it has signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of a nuclear power facility.

 

The agreement was signed at the Russian Energy Week in Moscow, which was attended by Burkina Faso’s energy minister Simon-Pierre Boussim.

The letter “fulfills the wish of the president of [Burkina] Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, expressed [in] July at the Russia-Africa summit during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin,” the statement stated.

 

The official announcement from Russia’s state atomic energy organization Rosatom stated that “the memorandum is the first document in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy between Russia and Burkina Faso.”

 

 

 

It said that deputy director general of Rosatom Nikolay Spasskiy and energy and mining minister Simon-Pierre Boussim signed the deal, allowing the nation to meet its energy demands thanks to the nuclear power plant.

 

 

The deal signed on Friday, follows a request made by Burkina Faso junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg in July.

 

 

Traore, who sized power in a military coup in September 2022, has moved closer to Russia as its relationship with its former colonial power France sours, while Russia has move to break Western isolation over the Ukraine conflict and expand its influence in Africa.