Russia will help Uzbekistan build two nuclear power plants, Uzbek news agency Kun.uz reports.

The agreement was reached after Russian president Vladimir Putin met Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the president of Uzbekistan, on Monday.

One will be a conventional, two-reactor, 2.4GW plant, and the other will be made up of six small modular reactors, each with a capacity of up to 55MW.

The two states are considering the formation of a partnership to handle the SMRs. This will be negotiated by Russian nuclear engineer Rosatom with a view to agreeing protocols for collaboration.

Alexey Likhachev, the chief executive of Rosatom, announced in February that his company was discussing the construction of SMRs with Uzbekistan – as well as Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, and “several island states in Southeast Asia”.

In July 2022, Rosatom signed an agreement with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy to develop the country’s nuclear infrastructure.

This covered technical education in Russia’s training centres and visits to full-scale simulators and laboratories.