Rosatom advances Bushehr 2 and 3 construction amid tensions

Rosatom said Bushehr unit 2 was more than 60 percent complete, a milestone that matters because the project is no longer just paperwork and rhetoric. The reactor vessel work has moved far enough along that steam generators were already 50 percent complete, and Alexei Likhachev said key equipment shipments for the unit were planned to begin next year. At the same time, Rosatom was still casting and forging metallurgical blanks for unit 3, keeping the second phase of the Russian-built Iranian project on an active industrial track.

The staffing picture underscored that the site was working, not idling. Likhachev said about 20 Rosatom staff were at Bushehr, while roughly 2,200 Iranian contractor workers had returned to the project and the number was still growing. That matters because Bushehr 2 and 3 are still in the civil, fabrication, and pre-installation stages, where continuity of labor and delivery schedules can matter as much as headline percentages.

The project has been building for years. Bushehr unit 1, a Russian-designed VVER-1000 with a capacity of 915 MWe, was connected to the grid in 2011 and entered commercial operation in 2013. The EPC turnkey contract for units 2 and 3 was signed in 2014 between Rosatom subsidiary ASE and Iran’s Nuclear Power Production & Development Company. Preliminary work began in December 2016, first concrete for unit 2 was poured in November 2019, the core catcher was installed in 2024, and the third tier of the inner containment building went up in January 2026. Iran suggested in September 2024 that unit 2 was targeted for operation in 2029, which leaves the plant years from delivery even after the latest visible progress.

Security remains the biggest variable around the work. On 4 April 2026, the International Atomic Energy Agency said a projectile struck near Bushehr, close to the Unit 1 fence, damaging a building through shockwaves and fragments. The agency said there was no increase in radiation levels, but Rafael Grossi said a member of the site’s physical protection staff was killed and that it was the fourth such incident in recent weeks. Grossi has also said Bushehr and the Tehran Research Reactor were the main nuclear-safety concerns during the regional conflict. Against that backdrop, Rosatom’s latest update shows the project still advancing physically, but on a timetable that now depends as much on security and logistics as on concrete and steel.