ASX uranium shares are storming higher today.

During the Thursday lunch hour, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is up a healthy 0.8%.

And it's getting plenty of support from the uranium miners.

Here's how these leading ASX uranium shares are tracking at this same time:

• Paladin Energy Ltd (ASX: PDN) shares are up 9.9%
• Bannerman Energy Ltd (ASX: BMN) shares are up 10.0%
• Deep Yellow Limited (ASX: DYL) shares are up 9.7%
• Boss Energy Ltd (ASX: BOE) shares are up 10.0%
• Alligator Energy Ltd (ASX: AGE) shares are up 7.7%

This will come as welcome news to shareholders, who watched most of these stocks rocket through to May this year before diving lower over the past months.

While each miner faces its own company-specific headwinds and tailwinds, the biggest factor pulling them all lower has been the big retrace in global uranium prices.

On Monday, uranium was trading at 10-month lows of just under US$80 per pound. That's down almost 25% from the US$106 that same pound was worth in early February when the nuclear fuel was trading at 16-year highs.

Today's surging share prices will be less welcomed by the cadre of short sellers who've been upping their bets against ASX uranium shares.

As I wrote here before market open this morning, Boss Energy joined the top ten most shorted ASX 200 shares this week, with short interest standing at 9.5%. Two other ASX uranium stocks came in at number 11 and number 12 on the most shorted list.

Ahead of today's soaring share price, I also noted, "I believe short-selling Boss Energy rather than buying the ASX share could backfire in the short term and is even more likely to prove a mistake in the long term."

Indeed.

So, what's spurring investor interest today?

I'm glad you asked!

Does Putin own ASX uranium shares?

Russian President Vladimir Putin's ability to move global markets is on display today.

And it made me wonder whether Putin may have been sneakily snapping up some ASX uranium shares.

In a televised government meeting on Wednesday, Putin said (quoted by Bloomberg), "Russia is the leader in strategic raw materials reserves like uranium, titanium, nickel … maybe we should also think about restrictions."

Putin stressed that any export restrictions shouldn't harm Russia.

He added:

I am not saying that this needs to be done tomorrow, but we could think about certain restrictions on supplies to the foreign market not only of the goods I mentioned, but also of some others.

Despite the United States moving to ban enriched Russian uranium imports in May this year, Russia remains the world's top exporter of nuclear fuel.

But if Putin follows through with his threats to restrict those exports, ASX uranium shares could see a sustained uptick in demand for their product.