MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation Rosatom said it is steadily increasing its workforce at Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, describing the situation at the facility as calm.
Director General of Rosatom Alexey Likhachev said the number of Russian specialists at the Bushehr site has reached 63 after another 18 experts joined the team overnight. The team is working on the construction of Power Units 2 and 3 in cooperation with Iranian contractors.
“At the moment, construction efforts are focused on erecting the reactor buildings and turbine halls for two power units. The first operational unit is running at 100% capacity,” Likhachev said in a statement. 
“We are increasing personnel numbers with an eye on the regional situation. Safety comes first. The situation at the site is currently calm.” 
Rosatom evacuated hundreds of staff from Bushehr in March after the United States and Israel launched their terrorist war on Iran on February 28. In early September, Likhachev said 45 Russian personnel were at the site and about 50 others were ready to arrive, with the number expected to reach 100 by the end of September.
Since the outbreak of the terrorist war on Iran on February 28, the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant has been struck multiple times. On March 17, a projectile hit a building within the plant’s inner perimeter, just meters from an operational power unit.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova strongly condemned the strike, saying Moscow had repeatedly warned Israel and the United States against creating threats to the lives of Russian personnel at the site.
On April 4, another missile 
strike hit the Bushehr NPP, killing one plant employee responsible for physical protection. Zakharova said the situation at the facility was “increasingly approaching a dangerous line” and expressed condolences over the death of the employee.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on March 25 that the consequences of the West Asia could be comparable to those of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the war is causing significant damage to international production and logistics chains.