Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Special Envoy for investment and economic cooperation, told Zvezda television in a Sept. 2 interview, that Russia is looking to foster Russia-China-U.S. projects in the Arctic region. According to TASS, Dmitriev said:
“Certainly, Russia is eyeing the opportunity of joint Russia-China-U.S. projects, including in the Arctic region, specifically in the energy sector also,” Dmitriev said. “We exactly see that projects should not be divided there into Russian-Chinese or Russian-U.S.,” he noted. “We see joint investments are possible, including for Chinese and American investors, into joint projects, including in hydrocarbon projects in the Arctic.”
Along a similar track, in his bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia on the sidelines of the SCO meeting, Putin responded to a comment by Fico about their efforts to proceed with Westinghouse to build a nuclear power plant in Slovakia, where all the other nuclear plants are Russian/Soviet. Putin responded:
“Speaking of nuclear power plants, the choice, of course, always remains with the customer. We have extensive experience cooperating with our foreign partners, including European partners. In particular, this applies to our joint work in Hungary. We can consider the possibility of cooperating with Westinghouse the way you are suggesting as well. Also, by the way—I mention this in passing—we can cooperate with our U.S. partners at the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant as well. We have indirectly discussed these matters with them. The same, by the way, applies to the Ukrainian side. Should favorable circumstances present themselves—we have discussed this with our U.S. colleagues—we can even work on the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant as a group of three.”
