Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan met with Alexey Likhachev, Director General of Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation, Rosatom, in Yerevan today to discuss extending the operational lifespan of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP) and Russia's proposals for building a new nuclear facility.

Pashinyan announced that his administration is evaluating nuclear proposals from multiple international partners and will reach a decision soon. He emphasized that the final choice will be driven entirely by economic criteria, prioritizing cost, quality, safety, delivery timelines, and long-term guarantees.

Likhachev detailed Rosatom's offers, which span large, medium, and small modular reactors (SMRs). He highlighted Russia's ongoing role in completing the first phase of modernization at the existing Metzamor plant, which seeks to keep its second power unit operational through 2036.

The meeting comes as Armenia actively seeks to replace its aging, Soviet-era Metzamor nuclear plant—which currently generates roughly 30% of the country's electricity.

While Russia’s Rosatom has formally proposed a massive 1-gigawatt VVER-1000 reactor, the Armenian government is intentionally looking beyond Moscow for its energy future. Pashinyan's administration is concurrently evaluating competing nuclear proposals from the United States, France, China, and South Korea.

To lower its historic energy dependence on Russia, Armenia signed a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States. The U.S. government has since backed feasibility studies to potentially deploy American Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in the country.