Pakistan denies airspace to Russian flight carrying uranium for Bangladesh's Rooppur plant

Pakistan denied airspace permission to a Russian cargo flight carrying a uranium shipment for Bangladesh’s Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, forcing a delay to the first batch of nuclear fuel for the plant’s second reactor unit.

Bangladesh’s minister for science and technology, Faqir Mahbub Anam, confirmed the disruption on Tuesday. “We heard that a cargo plane carrying uranium for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh was scheduled to arrive on September 24. However, the flight was not given permission to use Pakistani airspace, so the uranium did not arrive in Bangladesh as planned,” he told news agency ANI. He added that the exact reason for the refusal was unknown, and that Russia had proposed the first week of October as a new arrival date.

Pakistan’s High Commission in Dhaka described the matter in a clarification issued on Tuesday as one of “technical and procedural arrangements concerning flight routing and airspace permissions”. The mission said Islamabad “maintains an unwavering commitment to international diplomatic norms and processes all requests for diplomatic flight and overflight clearances within a standardised, predictable timeframe, strictly in accordance with our established regulatory guidelines and civil aviation protocols.” It said Pakistan “attaches high importance to its relations with Bangladesh” and urged that the matter be viewed “in a technical context only”, without attaching “undue significance to reports or narratives”.

Rosatom, the Russian state atomic energy corporation building the plant with technical assistance from Bangladesh’s Atomic Energy Commission, said nuclear fuel shipments for Unit-2 would resume in October via an alternative route, with the remaining batches arriving by December across seven cargo flights. Fuel delivery for the plant’s first unit was completed in 2023.

Rooppur, Bangladesh’s first nuclear power facility, sits on the banks of the Padma River in Pabna District and will generate 2,400 megawatts from two third-generation VVER-1200 reactor units, ANI reported.

Sources

• Hindustan Times, “‘Technical issue’: Pakistan denies airspace to Russian nuclear fuel shipment flight to Bangladesh’s Rooppur”, 29 September 2026
• ANI (via HT): statements by Faqir Mahbub Anam, Bangladesh minister for science and technology; Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka clarification
• The Daily Star (via HT): Rosatom statements on revised delivery schedule