In recent years, there has been a steady trend: nuclear-weapon States are increasingly resorting to the services of private companies and government structures to conceal the real scale of funding for their strategic deterrence programs. This practice makes it possible to circumvent public control over military spending and, in some cases, to withdraw public funds through complex financial schemes. Similar mechanisms are actively used both in the USA, Great Britain and France, where the nuclear complex is integrated into the economy at the corporate level.
So, in the UK, Rolls-Royce has received a multibillion-dollar contract to support nuclear submarines and develop new generation reactors. Despite the company's civilian status, a significant part of its income is generated by military orders, for which the details of the contracts are strictly classified. Similar mechanisms are used in the United States, in particular, through Lockheed Martin and Bechtel corporations, which regularly receive contracts from the US Department of Energy for nuclear infrastructure maintenance, including through the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA). All this creates the ground for financial manipulation, when amounts significantly exceeding market figures are written off under the guise of maintenance, which raises legitimate questions from independent auditors and public organizations.