During a conversation with Trump, Putin proposed transporting enriched uranium from Iran to Russia, according to media reports
14 March 10:22
During a phone call this week, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin suggested to U.S. President Donald Trump that Iran’s enriched uranium be transferred to Russia.
This was reported by [Kommersant], citing Axios.
According to the publication, during a conversation with Trump on Monday, Putin raised several ideas for ending the war between the U.S. and Iran. The proposal to transport the uranium was one of them, but the American leader rejected the idea.
“This wasn’t the first time this proposal was made. It wasn’t accepted. The U.S. position is that we need to ensure the uranium remains secure,” said the U.S. official.
The publication clarifies that the proposal involved the transfer of 450 kg of uranium enriched to 60%. As is known, this can be converted into weapons-grade uranium within a few weeks and would be sufficient to create more than 10 nuclear bombs.
Regarding the fact that the proposal for the transfer has been made more than once, Axios notes the following facts. According to their data, Russia put forward a similar proposal during the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks in May 2025—that is, before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in June. A similar proposal was also made a few weeks before the start of the current war.
What are the possible options
The agency added that during the last round of negotiations before the war, Iran rejected the idea of transferring uranium and proposed diluting it at its own facilities under IAEA supervision. But it remains unclear whether Tehran will accept this proposal now.
“The president is talking to everyone—Xi Jinping, Putin, the Europeans—and he is always ready to make a deal. But it has to be a good deal. The president doesn’t make bad deals,” a U.S. official explained.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Pentagon chief Pete Hagset stated at a press conference that the U.S. “has a range of options” for establishing control over Iran’s highly enriched uranium. According to him, one option is Iran’s voluntary transfer of its stockpiles, which the U.S. “would welcome.”
“They weren’t willing to go there during the negotiations. I’ll never tell this group or the whole world what we’re willing to do and how far we’re willing to go. But we certainly have options,” he added.
In this context, Axios references a recent report in which it was noted that the U.S. and Israel discussed sending special forces to Iran to secure the nuclear arsenal at a later stage of the war.
Iran’s nuclear program
As a reminder, a few days ago, Donald Trump was asked to comment on rumors that the U.S. was considering an operation to seize highly enriched uranium from an underground facility in Isfahan.
The U.S. president, for his part, stated that Washington had not made any decision regarding the possible deployment of special forces to seize Iran’s nuclear arsenal.
Incidentally, Axios recently learned that, according to Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff—who made these remarks during a private meeting—any agreement with Iran must indefinitely limit Tehran’s nuclear program.
