While Rosatom is building a nuclear power plant, others are taking their place under the sun

In 2022, Russia announced the reversal of energy exports to The East. But after more than four years, it becomes obvious that it is impossible to completely replace the former European market in the foreseeable future. The scale of demand, infrastructure constraints and the cost of new routes do not allow simply redirecting to the East what was previously sold to Europe. It may be necessary to change the approach itself. And to do this, first of all, in Central Asia — a strategic region for Russia, which has also become interesting to the EU as an energy source. And Armenia has something to do with it, too.

Central Asia is experiencing a large-scale energy crisis in recent history. The deterioration of Soviet infrastructure, a rapidly growing population and regular winter blackouts forced the governments of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to look for emergency solutions to the impasse. Two key players with fundamentally different strategies responded to this call — Russia and United Arab Emirates.

For Moscow, faced with a difficult and financially viscous reorientation of hydrocarbons to the East, Central Asia seemed to be an ideal, ready-made and physically connected sales market. However, it was here, in the "near abroad", that the Russian approach collided with the express capital of the Persian Gulf, clearly proving that in modern geopolitics time is money.

Megaprojects vs. mega-speed

Russia has historically dominated the region, and its main technological flagship, Rosatom, comes with a trump card: a peaceful atom. A project of a low—power nuclear power plant of 330 MW is already being implemented in Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, after a nationwide referendum, chose a Russian state corporation to build the first large nuclear power plant.

But nuclear power and large thermal power plants have one critical drawback — time. The design, coordination with the IAEA, environmental expertise, signing of complex intergovernmental agreements and the construction itself take from 6 to 10 years. The region freezes every winter and requires more electricity now.

An illustrative example for Russia is the construction of new thermal power plants in Kazakhstan's Kokshetau, Semey and Ust—Kamenogorsk. The Russian side did not provide the expected preferential interstate financing for two projects, and Kazakhstan transferred all three projects to another consortium. For Russia, these are not just lost construction sites. This is an example of how competitors occupy a place in the market if the offer is not fast enough or financially attractive.

Here the UAE comes on the scene in the person of the state-owned "green" giant Masdar. The Arab strategy is based on a tough commercial calculation and phenomenal speed. The construction of a turnkey solar or wind power plant takes only 12-18 months. Example — in In Uzbekistan, Masdar already has more than 2 GW of projects, and about 4 GW more are in the early stages of development. In Kazakhstan, in June 2026, the construction of a wind farm with a capacity of 1 GW with a storage capacity of 600 MWh began. Completion is scheduled for 2029.

Although a kilowatt of wind or solar is not equal to a kilowatt of nuclear generation, Masdar projects are already comparable in installed capacity to a large NPP power unit, and in a few years they will be equivalent to an entire NPP.

Thus, while the Russian ministries are coordinating the parameters of state loans, and Rosatom is pouring the first concrete under the foundation of the future, Arab investors manage to hand over several gigawatts of clean energy, instantly closing the current deficit in the power grids and collecting political points from local elites.

The UAE's tactics are quite simple at the same time. On the one hand, companies from the UAE come with their own sovereign funds, offering direct investments without long interstate loans, parliamentary ratifications and sovereign guarantees. On the other hand, they are not looking for long ways in production, but act as a global integrator — they buy huge volumes of cheap panels and turbines directly from Chinese conveyors and deploy them in the steppes of Central Asia.

A place in the outlet: why the price of delay is critical for Russia

The difference in the launch speeds of facilities launches quite dangerous economic processes for Russia. If there is a place in the outlet for everyone and the Central Asian countries will have to expand their power systems to receive large volumes of generation, then the opportunity to miss the sales market is a reality.

It is no secret that Gazprom is also betting on Central Asia when reorienting to the East, since gas is needed for maneuverable thermal power plants that secure unstable green power plants. At the same time, even the discussed Power of Siberia—2 gas pipeline to China will be able to take on only a little more than a third of the dropped European supplies.

Meanwhile, Arab companies are entering the region in a comprehensive manner, being the first to introduce giant industrial energy storage devices. And the sooner the UAE closes the issue of industrial energy storage in batteries, the less Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will need Russian gas facilities in the future.

Another opportunity that can be bet on in the UAE is Europe. The European Union refused Russian oil and coal, and the following year declared a complete rejection of gas from Russia. At the same time, Europe will not be able to fully meet the needs of its own "green" energy, and Central Asia should become one of the sources of clean electricity under the Green Corridor program. And this is a completely different income.

For Russia in this situation, trying to restore the old model at any cost is pointless. But this does not mean that Russia should abandon the European energy market altogether.

Moscow combines: individually or intentionally

Obviously, Moscow understands that staying in the narrow corridor of atom and oil and gas means it is guaranteed to weaken its position in the region.

An example would be Kyrgyzstan, where Rosatom is trying to apply a package solution: simultaneously with negotiations on a low-power nuclear power plant, the state corporation began accelerated construction of a 100 MW wind farm in the Issyk-Kul region. The logic is obvious: the windmill will give current and first profit in a year and a half, holding market share while a complex nuclear infrastructure is being prepared.

Such a combined approach can be a response to the expansion of competitors in Central Asian countries. But whether the Kyrgyz example is a counter-strategy or just a single example is unknown.

Maxim Shaposhnikov, adviser to the managing director of the Industrial Code Fund, notes that Rosatom has its own competencies in creating wind generation, and in solar generation Russia has Hevel, which has its own partially import-substituted production of panels and inverters.

"Russia is still offering solutions in which the advantages of Russian technologies are undeniable. In the wind and the sun, we inevitably encounter Chinese suppliers, who cannot be won by economic methods today," the expert says.

According to Maxim Shaposhnikov, the UAE can offer acceptable preferential financial conditions that Russian companies cannot create.

"Our country with the current monetary policy is deprived of such an opportunity, so we are selling something that no one else in the world has," said the adviser to the manager of the Industrial Code fund.

The Middle East in the "Near Abroad"

For Russia, Central Asia is a zone of critical security, age—old cultural ties and a common Soviet energy ring. However, the UAE is creating a new, commercial type of influence in the region.

Abu Dhabi is becoming an ideal and "safe" partner for local governments: the UAE is not intimidated by ambitions, does not require "loyalty", and most importantly, cooperation with them does not carry the risks of secondary sanctions from the US and the EU, which banks in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are now terrified of when working with Russian government agencies.

In this situation, Russia still holds the fundamental threads of influence in its hands: millions of migration flows, a defense umbrella, and dispatching control of electricity flows during critical accidents. But in the civil economic race, the UAE has set a tough precedent. The elites in Central Asia are very good at counting money and understand that the dollar brought by the UAE today and turned into a working kilowatt is more necessary and profitable for a developing economy right now than three dollars of promises of technological sovereignty in eight years.

The place under the Central Asian sun no longer belongs to Moscow by default — it will have to be protected in conditions of severe time shortage.

The Metsamor trap: not for Armenia, but for Russia

If in Central Asia Russia runs the risk of not being in time for the distribution of the pie, then in Armenia's situation is different: it may lose a significant part of the pie that was already on the plate.

The confidence that control over gas supplies and the Metsamor NPP guarantees eternal influence is playing a cruel joke. Armenia's energy balance is changing faster than major infrastructure projects are being implemented.

In 2025, the share of solar generation in electricity production reached 16.3%. The installed capacity of solar power plants has increased from 240 MW in 2022 to 710 MW in 2025 - almost threefold.

The changes are already reflected in the work of traditional generation. In 2025, electricity generation at thermal power plants in Armenia decreased by 4.4%, while solar generation increased by 66.9%. Over the years 2022-2025, electricity generation from gas decreased by about 13%, according to Ember. It would be wrong to associate all the decline solely with solar energy, but the direction of structural changes is obvious.

For Gazprom, this is not an abstract threat. Its subsidiary Gazprom Armenia owns the Hrazdan-5 power unit with a capacity of about 467 MW. And the more electricity Armenia receives from the sun, the less the potential need to load gas stations during daytime hours.

Therefore, the question for Russia is not only who will build a new NPP power unit — Rosatom or an American competitor. We are talking about a larger process: how will Armenia's energy system be rebuilt and what place will remain in it for Russian companies?