Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Spokesman says protocol for building small reactors with Russia is being finalized

• Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman and deputy head of international, legal and parliamentary affairs at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, announced the pursuit of joint cooperation with Russia for the construction of small and modular reactors, and said: A protocol is being signed with the Russian side to speed up the process of building these types of reactors.

Iran-Russia nuclear cooperation is a long-running file, and announcements of protocols on small modular reactors have historically moved at the slow end of the implementation spectrum: MOUs and protocols between the two states have often preceded years of delay, financing disputes, or quiet abandonment, so headline flow of this kind has rarely translated into near-term construction. The market-relevant distinction is between civil reactor work, which is tolerated and typically sanctions-compliant, and anything touching enrichment or fuel-cycle activity, which is where nuclear headlines have historically fed into crude risk premia and safe-haven gold through escalation or sanction headlines rather than the project itself. The actors matter here: the AEOI spokesman is a regular channel for messaging aimed at signalling defiance of Western pressure and deepening of the Moscow axis, a posture that has tended to harden in periods of stalled diplomacy with the US and Europe. The follow-ons worth noting are whether the announcement is framed within existing bilateral energy agreements or signals a new framework, and whether it draws response from Washington or the E3, since past episodes show it is the reaction function, not the Iranian statement, that has generated volatility in energy and FX. On its own, a reactor protocol is a low-signal geopolitical data point; its weight comes from what it says about the state of Iran's diplomatic isolation at that moment.