Commercial operation of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant has been delayed after Germany’s Siemens Energy withheld key parts, prompting Russia to buy them in China, the Turkish energy minister said on Wednesday.

Siemens’s non-delivery will delay operation of the Akkuya nuclear power station’s first reactor by a few months, Alparslan Bayraktar told state-run Anadolu agency.

The decision is probably the result of Western sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, he added.

Bayraktar said that Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation, has already struck deals with Chinese companies to produce equivalent parts, though he provided no company names.