Russia's Rosatom plans to beef up personnel at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant to 100

The head of Russia's state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom said Sunday that it plans to increase its staff at Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant to 100 by the fall, so long as the current conflict allows, Russia's state news agency Tass reported.

Alexey Likhachev said the company has begun returning specialists to the Bushehr construction site, with the first five engineering and technical workers already arriving and starting work.

"That brings the total number of Russian specialists to 25," he said.

Likhachev said Rosatom plans to return all specialists previously evacuated from Iran "as soon as possible," but a return to prewar staffing levels will depend on final agreements between the US and Iran on a cessation of hostilities.

"We plan to send the next group, several dozen employees, in the next two weeks," he said. "This is, of course, assuming there is no further escalation of the conflict between the US and Iran. If all goes well, we will increase our project staff to 100 by the fall."

Construction of the main and auxiliary buildings for power units No. 2 and No. 3 is continuing at the site, while preparatory work has begun on hydraulic structures, Likhachev said.

Russia and Iran signed a contract for construction of the first power unit of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in 1995. In 2011, the plant started operating. In 2014, Russia and Iran signed a contract for the construction of two new reactors at Bushehr.

In March, Russia began evacuating its personnel from the plant due to the conflict, which started on Feb. 28 when the US and Israel launched a joint offensive on Iran.

Tehran and Washington agreed to a ceasefire in April and subsequently signed a framework deal in June aimed at ending the conflict and reaching a lasting peace agreement.

The deal, however, collapsed last month with the two sides exchanging attacks for nearly two weeks before US President Donald Trump abruptly halted the bombardment amid reports of talks to resolve the conflict.