MELITOPOL, March 30. /TASS/. The number of employees at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant will be increased to 4,500 people by the end of next month, Renat Karchaa, adviser to the CEO of Russia’s Rosenergoatom nuclear power plant operator, told TASS.

"By late April, the ZNPP staff will be expanded to a projected 4,500 people," he said.

As of today, more than 3,000 people have signed a labor contract with the operating company, with 1,200 applications currently under consideration or being verified, Karchaa specified.

Ukraine’s state-owned energy company Energoatom ran the Zaporozhye nuke plant until February 2022. The nuclear facility was taken under control of Russian forces later that month. On October 3, Rosenergoatom established the JSC Operating Organization of the Zaporozhye NPP, and on October 5 Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed that ZNPP facilities be transferred to Russia’s ownership. Three days later, on Putin’s orders, the government established the Moscow-headquartered Federal State Unitary Enterprise Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.