Summary

Trump rejects Putin’s proposal to move Iranian enriched uranium to Russia US President Donald Trump has reportedly rejected a proposal from Moscow to transfer Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia. According to Axios, citing anonymous sources, the idea was raised during a phone call on Monday between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had floated several possible solutions to end the war with Iran. However, Trump is said to have dismissed the proposal, insisting that Washington remains committed to securing the stockpile itself. Destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities has been a stated war aim for both the United States and Israel, with both signalling that deploying troops on the ground in Iran may eventually be the means to achieve that goal. At a press conference on Friday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington maintained "a range of options" to seize Iran’s highly enriched uranium. Putin’s plan, the report suggests, would have prevented US and Israeli forces from deploying troops on Iranian soil. Earlier this month, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told CNBC that Iran possessed a stockpile of around 460 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. He further claimed that Tehran could convert the material to weapons-grade level of 90 percent enrichment in under a week, enough for more than 11 nuclear bombs. Tehran has denied these allegations. Russia, already a nuclear power, had previously stored portions of Iran’s low-enriched uranium under the 2015 nuclear deal. Putin had raised similar proposals to host Iran’s uranium stockpile during negotiations in May 2025, which ended abruptly after US and Israeli strikes targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities the following month. Moscow reportedly revived the idea during this year’s rounds of talks, before the large-scale US-Israeli attacks on Iran began on 28 February. Iran rejected the proposal on both prior occasions, suggesting instead that its uranium could be diluted domestically under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. Tehran has not yet commented on whether it would consider the latest Russian offer. The proposal comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow, following Trump’s acknowledgement in a Fox News interview that Putin had been assisting Tehran with intelligence allegedly used to target US forces. Despite that, Witkoff and Trump adviser Jared Kushner held a separate call with Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy aide, who denied that Russia had been sharing intelligence with Iran.