> "Or, less aggressively, they would retain enough reserve power generation capacity to replace the electricity. For example, have gas plants that can be spun up on demand if the nuclear reactors were shut off."

If your country has the capabilities to build reserve power plants why allow the Russians to get all the profit from the power market ? You could just spin up your gas plants indefinitely.

Nuclear power is also not cheap, and the main cost is associated with risk (disposing of waste, etc), I am sorry but if their is one area where you cant be cheap its nuclear power.

Also the countries that Russia seems to target are poor countries with weak governments like Sudan (not to mention Sudan's main cites are all far away from the coast). Most poor countries these days are located in perfect places for solar energy, which is anyway cheaper than nuclear.