Alexei Likhachev

Alexei Likhachev is the Director-General of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, and the person responsible for the physical management of Iran's nuclear commitments under Russian diplomatic frameworks. On 13 April 2026, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russia's offer to take custody of Iran's enriched uranium still stood and had not been acted upon. Likhachev personally tabled three concrete options for transferring the material: it could be transported to Russia and diluted before return, or Russia could deliver Iran an equivalent quantity of natural uranium, or Iran could be paid the financial value of the enriched stockpile.

Likhachev has led Rosatom since 2016 and was previously Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation. Under his tenure, Rosatom has expanded its global footprint significantly, winning contracts for nuclear power plants in Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh, Hungary, and Finland, while maintaining its longstanding role at Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran. The 2026 conflict placed Rosatom's civilian operations in an unprecedented position: the corporation simultaneously managed reactor safety at Bushehr — a site that had come under Israeli and US strikes — while its government was supplying Iran with weapons and proposing diplomatic off-ramps for its nuclear programme.

Likhachev's three-option proposal represents the most concrete public Russian diplomatic offer in the uranium disposition track since the 2015 JCPOA arrangements. The offer's persistence despite Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei stating on 14 April that nuclear weapons are "a matter of life and not a matter for negotiation" suggests Moscow is maintaining back-channel pressure on Tehran to accept a deal that would remove the nuclear dimension of the conflict as a US justification for continued military action.