MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- The head of Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom announced Sunday that Russian specialists are returning to Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, with plans to increase staffing to 100 by the fall.

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 at the site to 25.

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

Likhachev added that Rosatom plans to return all specialists who were previously evacuated from Iran “as soon as possible,” but said a return to prewar staffing levels would depend on final agreements between Washington and Tehran on a cessation of hostilities.

According to Likhachev, 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.

In March, Russia began evacuating its personnel from the plant amid U.S.-Israeli attacks near the Bushehr nuclear facility. Rosatom had reduced its personnel at the facility to a minimum and began evacuating additional staff as the security situation deteriorated.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) later confirmed that Iran had informed the agency that a projectile had struck the premises of the plant. The incident followed an earlier strike on the facility and prompted warnings from Russia over the dangers of military attacks near the nuclear site.

Rosatom had said at the time that a strike had hit territory adjacent to a building belonging to the plant’s metrological service, located in close proximity to the operating power unit. Some 163 Russian specialists were evacuated on March 25, with about 300 remaining at the facility.
Russia and Iran began cooperation on the Bushehr nuclear plant in 1995, with the first unit becoming operational in 2011 and a 2014 contract covering two additional reactors.