Bolivia’s partnership with Russia is intensifying via a major lithium and nuclear-tech deal just as Bolivia joins BRICS, marking a strategic shift in resource alliances and supply-chain geopolitics.
Bolivia’s diverse economy—with significant mining, soy-bean agriculture and natural-gas exports—has drawn heightened interest from Russia after Bolivia became a partner of BRICS in 2024.
Bilateral trade between Bolivia and Russia currently hovers around US$100 million, but a landmark US$970 million deal is underway: Russia’s nuclear-state firm Rosatom has signed an agreement to build a lithium-carbonate processing complex in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, targeting 14,000 metric tons a year via direct-extraction technology.
The project also includes a high-altitude (4,000 m) nuclear research and tech centre, but it faces political hurdles in Bolivia’s legislature and opposition from local communities in the Potosí region, reflecting the complex interplay of geopolitics, resource‐domination and emerging supply chains.