Rosatom accused of safety violations at Egypt nuclear plant — leaked documents

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BRUSSELS — A Russian state-controlled corporation building a nuclear power plant in Hungary is facing allegations of safety, security and engineering failures at another project in Egypt that uses the same technology, according to internal documents obtained by POLITICO.

In a confidential letter dated June 4 and addressed to a Rosatom executive, Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority describes “defects” affecting multiple reactor units and violations of “nuclear safety culture” as it builds the El Dabaa nuclear plant. The letter also cites “deliberate negligence” on the part of an official at the project.

The tranche of documents was shared through an intelligence official who was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, and it has never previously been made public. It includes confidential company documents that describe construction delays and engineering concerns coming from Rosatom’s own reviews of the project.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted Europe to impose sweeping sanctions on the country, Rosatom has tried to convince European governments that it remains a reliable and competent supplier in the nuclear power market. But the accusations of safety breaches could add to existing concerns over the Kremlin-controlled company’s operations in the EU.

In an emailed statement to POLITICO, Rosatom said it upholds the highest levels of nuclear safety and had done so throughout the construction of El Dabaa. The company declined to comment on whether it had received the letter or the complaints from Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its communications with Rosatom.

“The high standard of work organisation, the quality management system and the safety culture are affirmed by the sustained attention paid to the project by the political leadership of the Russian Federation and the Arab Republic of Egypt, as well as by the leadership of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose representatives regularly attend key project milestones,” said the company by email, adding that a recent ceremony for one of El Dabaa’s reactor units was attended by Russian, Egyptian and IAEA officials .

Construction workers pose during the official ceremony for pouring concrete for Power Unit 4 at El Dabaa on Jan. 23, 2024. | Alexander Yelistratov/TASS via Belga

None of the allegations contained in the letter, presented to Rosatom by POLITICO, have been “confirmed within the contractual, technical and oversight procedures envisaged by the project,” read the company’s statement.

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in July he expected the construction of all four El Dabaa reactors to finish by 2030, with the first reactor unit set to begin producing power by 2028. No nuclear fuel has yet been introduced to the site. Rosatom’s Egyptian plant will use the same technology at the heart of Hungary’s Paks II project , the Kremlin-backed nuclear expansion that has repeatedly raised tensions between Budapest and the European Commission.

The Commission told POLITICO it was not aware of the confidential documents and allegations they contain. “For the EU, nuclear safety is a key priority,” said a Commission spokesperson.

They added that while the Commission was following the project’s developments, “issues of nuclear safety are [the] responsibility of the EU Member State concerned.”

Initially green-lit by Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in 2014, the Paks II project became emblematic of Budapest’s alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin and provided a foothold for Russian energy technology inside the EU. Work began on the project in February this year.

The Kremlin-controlled corporation also has plant projects in Turkey and China, while Germany is under fire for green-lighting a deal in July that will allow one of Rosatom’s subsidiaries to help produce nuclear fuel rods for a plant in Lower Saxony. The German government said the deal would be under strict national security controls.

Egypt’s El Dabaa is located on the Mediterranean Sea coast, some 300 kilometers northwest of Cairo. | Alexander Ryumin/TASS via Belga

The Egyptian government and its embassies in Belgium and the United States did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The allegations

Once fully operational, the El Dabaa complex will contain four Russian-designed nuclear reactor units under the supervision of the Nuclear Power Plants Authority. In the letter sent by the Egyptian authority to Rosatom, an official at the agency wrote that uncompleted reactor units have already encountered defects.

Originally sent to Rosatom in English, the letter appears to have been translated into Russian for internal circulation. POLITICO is citing a version of the letter translated back into English.

“There has been a re-emergence of serious concrete defects, including voids behind the metal cladding at Unit 4, defects in the foundation slabs of Units 1, 2 and 3, which took a year to repair, and defects in the cellular structure in the cylindrical wall of the reactor building at Unit 4,” details the letter.

The Egyptian agency then accuses Rosatom of “misleading methods” and “fictitious work” attempting to prove the plant’s construction is over halfway complete, “while a visual inspection at the site clearly shows that the main buildings of the nuclear island are still in the underground construction phase.”

Rosatom, the Egyptian authority alleges, also presides over an unprofessional workplace culture in which workers were caught in possession of “prohibited alcoholic beverages” on the work site, used “forged passes and impersonated others to gain unauthorized access,” and took several “photos and videos taken at the construction site” that ended up on social media, “which negatively affected the reputation of the project.”

Workers produce elements of the El Dabaa reactor building’s internal containment shell in Egypt’s Matrouh region on Nov. 18, 2025. | Alexander Ryumin/TASS via Belga

The letter makes reference to a serious accident on the construction site, which resulted in a worker suffering “a severe open fracture” and then being smuggled to a private vehicle, not to an “equipped ambulance,” which the Egyptian authority claims was done “intentionally” to cover up the incident.

“Such behavior represents a serious disregard for both human well-being and professional responsibility, and constitutes a gross violation of workplace safety regulations, nuclear safety culture and reporting obligations,” said the letter.

Four additional internal Rosatom business documents reviewed by POLITICO reinforce aspects of the Egyptian authority’s concerns, detailing delays, construction-quality problems and project-management failures. One Rosatom draft audit prepared internally in 2025 warned of a “significant risk of failure to fulfill” the company’s contractual obligations and forecast that the preliminary schedule of El Dabaa’s first reactor unit could slip by 18 months, from September 2028 to March 2030.

Future in doubt

The allegations contained in the documents cast a shadow over the Paks II project in Hungary and are likely to reinforce concerns in Brussels about entrusting critical European infrastructure to a company under the Kremlin’s control.

In a lengthy commentary by the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense and security think tank, researchers warned Western countries against doing business with Rosatom, citing its deep connections to Russian intelligence and its problematic role in forcibly running the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine through military force.

For the government of Hungary’s newly elected Prime Minister Péter Magyar, the Rosatom revelations also present a new headache: Paks II remains indispensable to Hungary’s plans to decarbonize its electricity system and replace aging nuclear capacity. In an effort to reexamine Orbán-era policymaking, Magyar’s government recently opened a review into Paks II, questioning its hefty price tag and connections to Putin.

Former Hungarian Green lawmaker Benedek Jávor , who focused on Paks II and was critical of the Orbán government, cautioned other governments about working with Rosatom. He told POLITICO he now believed the allegations coming out of El Dabaa could have far-reaching consequences for Rosatom and the fate of Paks II.

“They’ve already decided to reconsider the contract, and this was already communicated during the election campaign,” he said of Magyar’s government. “[This] information from Egypt will definitely be part of the evaluation.”