The United States’ refusal to help Brazil with its nuclear submarine project led President Jair Bolsonaro to ask for support from Vladimir Putin, which was settled on his controversial February trip to Moscow and is now in check due to the war in Ukraine.
Assistance with the certification of the fuel to be used in the submarine’s reactor took technical missions from the Brazilian Navy to Washington to discuss cooperation. By 2018, it became clear that this would come to nothing.
According to a military man with knowledge of the negotiations, the Americans taunted the Brazilians and asked for new information. Itamaraty, which participated jointly in the negotiation, decided to look for alternatives in view of the impact of the schedule.
Putin’s Russia, the second-largest power in the field after the United States, was a good candidate, despite already being in Western crosshairs due to the annexation of Crimea in 2014. There were initial talks, but Bolsonaro’s coming to power initially paralyzed the country. process.
This is because the new chancellor, Ernesto Araújo, despite calling himself an anti-globalist like the Russian president, was a staunch advocate of unconditional alignment with Washington. He vetoed the association with Moscow, which brought the issue back to the Defense Ministry table.
In 2020, talks resumed, with support from the government’s military wing. The ejection of Araújo from the chair, which took place in March 2021, accelerated the process, which had in Flávio Rocha one of its engines. Active four-star admiral and Secretary of Strategic Affairs for the Presidency, Rocha went to Moscow at the end of 2021 with a mission to tie the points of cooperation.
Bolsonaro was then invited and agreed to visit the Kremlin, when the Russian was already openly accused by the West of preparing the invasion of Ukraine — which took place a week after the president left Russia, despite the Brazilian’s jokes about his role in preventing the invasion of Ukraine. conflict and the “solidarity” announced to Putin. He heard criticism of the West.
Nothing was mentioned on the trip on the issue of submarines, but the minister of Mines and Energy, reserve admiral Bento Albuquerque, confirmed that he had spoken with Russian state-owned atomic energy company Rosatom about its participation in the Angra 3 plant, which the government wants see finalized by 2026. That would be the civil side of the deal.
Bolsonaro, however, slipped. In a meeting with businessmen after the visit to Putin, he spoke briefly about the topics of the trip and mentioned interest in the nuclear area “because of the propulsion of our submarine”. Nobody paid much attention and the next day the president was already in Budapest quoting fascist slogans to Prime Minister “brother” Viktor Orbán.
The war in Ukraine puts the arrangement in jeopardy, due to the obvious international pressure against any kind of military negotiation with Moscow. Brazil has very little Russian material: it operates portable Igla-S anti-aircraft missiles and had a squadron of 12 Mi-35 attack helicopters, a model in use in the conflict.
It had because two weeks before the war, already with the pressure on Putin, the Air Force decided to deactivate it. The measure, however, has been under discussion for years: the Mi-35s are expensive in terms of logistics and, operationally, the FAB has decided that it does not need an attack helicopter at this time.
There is, as far as is known, no official document linking the submarine case to Russia. According to sheet heard at Itamaraty, there will be a discreet attempt to keep the business, but it is very uncertain at this point. None of the parties involved has officially commented on the case.
For the military, the situation is even more complicated in terms of political exposure with the revelation made on Tuesday (15) by The New York Times about an American couple who tried to sell military secrets to Brazil precisely about the operation of nuclear submarines. The American daily says they were arrested following a complaint made by Brazilian authorities.
The Brazilian Navy has had a nuclear program since 1979. Despite mastering vital technologies such as the complete cycle of fuel to be used in reactors and having since 2009 a program to build a submarine powered by this type of energy, the Force faces difficulties techniques.
The main one has to do with the certification of the fuel to be used in the submarine. To generate heat in order to turn the vessel’s engine turbine, the fuel uranium must have an enrichment of 20%.
In plants like Angra 1 and 2, the required index is 4.25%. Nuclear bombs use 80% of the material. The so-called enrichment is a process in which uranium hexafluoride gas, obtained from an ore paste called “yellow cake”, is rotated in ultracentrifuges.
Its lighter isotopes (atoms of the same element, but with different masses), which are used for nuclear fission, generating heat or explosions at the customer’s taste, are concentrated in the center of the equipment, then transferred to other centrifuges. The more processed, the more enriched.
Today Brazil foresees autonomy to feed its nuclear plants for the next decade, despite having the eighth uranium reserve in the world. It sends its “yellow cake” to other countries, receiving back the tablets that are made from the reconversion of gas into powder. They are arranged on rods to feed the reactors.
There are other technical issues. In 2021, the Navy began testing a nuclear reactor-powered engine, inside a large metallic cylinder that simulates submarine conditions, a step where extensive Russian experience could be useful.
Under the 2009 Brazil-France military agreement, in addition to four conventional submarines, the French have to integrate the ready-made Brazilian reactor into the hull of the new vessel. The deal was budgeted at €6.7 billion (R$37.5 billion in current values).
The project as a whole has suffered from budgetary anemia over the years, but in 2021 it met its goals and disbursed BRL 482.6 million. The delay is clear: the submarine that was supposed to reach the sea in 2025 will not do so until the end of the next decade.
That if you do, given the geopolitical implications underlying not just dating Russians. American resistance is also noticeable at the International Atomic Energy Agency. The country should be pressured in the UN body to present safeguards on technologies, as a way of pressing for adherence to the so-called Additional Protocols of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
They foresee tough inspection regimes for units linked to nuclear programs, and Brazil has rejected their signature for years, considering that it hurts its sovereignty and jeopardizes industrial secrets from its ultracentrifuges.
