Rosatom returns 42 specialists to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant after mass evacuation

Russia is tiptoeing back into Iran’s most prominent nuclear facility. Rosatom, Moscow’s state-owned nuclear corporation, has sent 42 specialists back to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant as of mid-August, marking the first significant return of Russian personnel since a sweeping evacuation earlier this year. The goal is to scale that number to 100 by autumn, assuming the security situation cooperates. From 600 to zero to 42 In late February, US and Israeli military operations escalated across the region. By April, Rosatom had evacuated more than 600 Russian staff from the Bushehr site as a precautionary measure. Roughly 700 Russian specialists had been working on the construction of Bushehr’s second and third reactor units, part of a broader workforce of about 3,000 people at the site. Pulling them out meant effectively hitting pause on one of the most consequential nuclear construction projects in the Middle East. Bushehr’s first unit has been operational since 2011, generating 915 megawatts of electrical capacity. Units 2 and 3 are still under construction. After the evacuation, local Iranian contractors kept work going at a reduced pace, but the absence of Rosatom’s engineers was ...