Burkina Faso's military leaders have signed a deal with Russia to build a nuclear power plant to increase electricity supplies.
"The government of Burkina
Faso has signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a nuclear
power plant," the government said in a statement.
The agreement was signed at the
Russian Energy Week in Moscow, which was attended by Burkina Faso's energy
minister Simon-Pierre Boussim.
The document "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 said.
Russia's state atomic energy
agency Rosatom said in its own statement that "the memorandum is the first
document in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy between Russia and
Burkina Faso."
The nuclear power plant will
enable the country to meet its energy needs, it said, adding that the agreement
was signed by energy and mines minister Simon-Pierre Boussim, and Nikolay
Spasskiy, Rosatom's deputy director general.
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.
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