Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program
Jun 26, 2008 The Cold War Atomic Intelligence Game, 1945-70. Analysis of the impact on the Soviet nuclear weapons program of testing moratoriums and the proposed. The Soviet Union also had be invest substantial resources in developing the engineering and industrial infrastructure to translate a theoretical design into an actual weapon. After the explosions of the first Soviet atomic device in l949 and the Soviet hydrogen bomb in August l953, the Soviet armed forces acquired nuclear weapons.
At the Radium Institute,. Main articles: and In 1945, the Soviet intelligence obtained rough blueprints of the first U.S. Atomic device. Alexei Kojevnikov has estimated, based on newly released Soviet documents, that the primary way in which the espionage may have sped up the Soviet project was that it allowed Khariton to avoid dangerous tests to determine the size of the critical mass: 'tickling the dragon's tail,' as it was called in the U.S., consumed a good deal of time and claimed at least two lives; see and.
The published of 1945 on the Manhattan Project was translated into Russian, and the translators noted that a sentence on the effect of 'poisoning' of Plutonium-239 in the first (lithograph) edition had been deleted from the next (Princeton) edition. This change was noted by the Russian translators, and alerted the Soviet Union to the problem (which had meant that reactor-bred plutonium could not be used in a simple gun-type bomb like the proposed ). One of the key pieces of information, which Soviet intelligence obtained from Fuchs, was a cross-section for.
This data was available to top Soviet officials roughly three years before it was openly published in the Physical Review in 1949. However, this data was not forwarded to or until very late, practically months before publication. Initially both Ginzburg and Sakharov estimated such a cross-section to be similar to the D-D reaction. Once the actual cross-section become known to Ginzburg and Sakharov, the Sloika design become a priority, which resulted in a successful test in 1953. In the 1990s, with the declassification of Soviet intelligence materials, which showed the extent and the type of the information obtained by the Soviets from US sources, a heated debate ensued in Russia and abroad as to the relative importance of espionage, as opposed to the Soviet scientists' own efforts, in the making of the Soviet bomb.
The vast majority of scholars agree that whereas the Soviet atomic project was first and foremost a product of local expertise and scientific talent, it is clear that espionage efforts contributed to the project in various ways and most certainly shortened the time needed to develop the atomic bomb. Comparing the timelines of H-bomb development, some researchers came to the conclusion that the Soviets had a gap in access to classified information regarding the H-bomb at least between late 1950 and some time in 1953. Earlier, e.g., in 1948, Fuchs gave the Soviets a detailed update of the classical super progress , including an idea to use lithium, but did not explain it was specifically lithium-6.
Teller accepted the fact that 'classical super' scheme was infeasible by 1951, following results obtained by various researchers (including ) and calculations performed by in late 1950. Yet the research for the Soviet analogue of 'classical super' continued until December 1953, when the researchers were reallocated to a new project working on what later became a true H-bomb design, based on radiation implosion.
This remains an open topic for research, whether the Soviet intelligence was able to obtain any specific data on Teller-Ulam design in 1953 or early 1954. Yet, Soviet officials directed the scientists to work on a new scheme, and the entire process took less than two years, commencing around January 1954 and producing a successful test in November 1955. It also took just several months before the idea of radiation implosion was conceived, and there is no documented evidence claiming priority. It is also possible that Soviets were able to obtain a document lost by on a train in 1953, which reportedly contained key information about thermonuclear weapon design. Initial thermonuclear bomb designs. This article needs additional citations for.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009) Early ideas of the fusion bomb came from espionage and internal Soviet studies.
Though the espionage did help Soviet studies, the early American H-bomb concepts had substantial flaws, so it may have confused, rather than assisted, the Soviet effort for a nuclear bomb. The designers of early thermonuclear bombs envisioned using an atomic bomb as a trigger to provide the needed heat and compression to initiate the thermonuclear reaction in a layer of liquid deuterium between the fissile material and the surrounding chemical high explosive. The group would realize that a lack of sufficient heat and compression of the deuterium would result in an insignificant fusion of the deuterium fuel.
Andrei Sakharov’s study group at FIAN in 1948 came up with a second concept which was adding a shell of natural, unenriched uranium around the deuterium would increase the deuterium concentration at the uranium-deuterium boundary and the overall yield of the device, because the natural uranium would capture neutrons and itself fission as part of the thermonuclear reaction. This idea of a layered fission-fusion-fission bomb led Sakharov to call it the sloika, or layered cake. It was also known as the RDS-6S, or Second Idea Bomb. This second bomb idea was not a fully evolved thermonuclear bomb in the contemporary sense, but a crucial step between pure fission bombs and the thermonuclear “supers.” Due to the three-year lag in making the key breakthrough of radiation compression from the United States the Soviet Union’s development efforts followed a different course of action. In the United States they decided to skip the single-stage fusion bomb and make a two-stage fusion bomb as their main effort.
Unlike the Soviet Union, the analog RDS-7 advanced fission bomb was not further developed, and instead, the single-stage 400-kiloton RDS-6S was the Soviet’s bomb of choice. The RDS-6S Layer Cake design was detonated on 12 August 1953, producing a yield of 400 kilotons, about ten times more powerful than any previous Soviet test. Around this time the United States detonated its first super using radiation compression on 1 November 1952,. Though the Mike was about twenty times greater than the RDS-6S, it was not a design that was practical to use, unlike the RDS-6S. Following the successful launching of the, Sakharov proposed an upgraded version called RDS-6SD. This bomb was proved to be faulty, and it was neither built nor tested.
The Soviet team had been working on the RDS-6T concept, but it also proved to be a dead end. In 1954, Sakharov worked on a third concept, a two-stage thermonuclear bomb. The third idea used the radiation wave of a fission bomb, not simply heat and compression, to ignite the fusion reaction, and paralleled the discovery made by Ulam and Teller. Unlike the RDS-6S boosted bomb, which placed the fusion fuel inside the primary A-bomb trigger, the thermonuclear super placed the fusion fuel in a secondary structure a small distance from the A-bomb trigger, where it was compressed and ignited by the A-bomb’s x-ray radiation. The Scientific-Technical Council approved plans to proceed with the design on 24 December 1954. Technical specifications for the new bomb were completed on 3 February 1955, and it was designated the.
The RDS-37 was successfully tested on 22 November 1955 with a yield of 1.6 megaton. The yield was almost a hundred times greater than the first Soviet atomic bomb six years before, showing that the Soviet Union could compete with the United States.
Logistical problems The single largest problem during the early Soviet project was the procurement of ore, as the USSR had limited domestic sources at the beginning of the project. The era of domestic uranium mining can be dated exactly, to November 27, 1942, the date of a directive issued by the all-powerful wartime. The first Soviet uranium mine was established in, present-day, and was producing at an annual rate of a few tons of by May 1943.
Taboshar was the first of many officially secret Soviet related to uranium mining and production. Demand from the experimental bomb project was far higher. The Americans, with the help of Belgian businessman in 1940, had already blocked access to known sources in Congo, South Africa, and Canada. In December 1944 Stalin took the uranium project away from and gave to it to. The first Soviet uranium processing plant was established as the in Chkalovsk (present-day ), Tajikistan, and new production sites identified in relative proximity.
This posed a need for labor, a need that Beria would fill with forced labor: tens of thousands of prisoners were brought to work in the mines, the processing plants, and related construction. Domestic production was still insufficient when the Soviet reactor, which began operation in December 1946, was fueled using uranium confiscated from the remains of the. This uranium had been mined in the, and the ore in Belgium fell into the hands of the Germans after their in 1940. Further sources of uranium in the early years of the program were mines in East Germany (via the deceptively-named ), Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania (near Stei) and Poland. Sold 0.23 tonnes of uranium oxide to the Soviet Union during the war, with the authorisation of the U.S. Eventually, large domestic sources were discovered in the Soviet Union (including those now in ).
The uranium for the Soviet nuclear weapons program came from mine production in the following countries, Year USSR 1945 14.6 t 1946 50.0 t 15 t 18 t 26.6 t 1947 129.3 t 150 t 49.1 t 7.6 t 2.3 t 1948 182.5 t 321.2 t 103.2 t 18.2 t 9.3 t 1949 278.6 t 767.8 t 147.3 t 30.3 t 43.3 t 1950 416.9 t 1,224 t 281.4 t 70.9 t 63.6 t Important Soviet nuclear tests. Main article: During the Cold War, the Soviet Union created at least nine, known as , in which nuclear weapons-related research and development took place. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all of the cities changed their names (most of the original code-names were simply the and a number). All are still legally 'closed', though some have parts of them accessible to foreign visitors with special permits (Sarov, Snezhinsk, and Zheleznogorsk). Baggott, Jim (2010).
New York: Pegasus Books. Retrieved 23 April 2017. ^ Sublette, Carey. Nuclearweaponarchive, part I. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
^ Swift, John. History Today. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
Holloway, by David (1994). New Haven: Yale University Press. Retrieved 21 April 2017. Retrieved 21 April 2017. Strickland, Jeffrey (2011).
New York: Lulu.com. Retrieved 21 April 2017. ^ Schmid, Sonja D. 'Dual Origins'. (googlebooks) (1 ed.). S.l.: MIT Press. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
Lente, Dick van (2012). 'A Conspicuous Silence'. New York: Springer. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
^ Johnson, Paul R. U.S.: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
^ Richelson, Jeffrey (2007). 'A Terrifying Prospect'. Norton & Company. Retrieved 12 June 2017. Burns, Richard Dean; Siracusa, Joseph M. 'Soviet scientists began Quest'.
Retrieved 12 June 2017. Ponomarev, L. I.; Kurchatov, I. Bristol: CRC Press.
Retrieved 12 June 2017. ^ Kelly, Peter (8 May 1986). New Scientist. Reed Business Information (1507). Retrieved 12 June 2017. ^ Allen, Thomas B.; Polmar, Norman (2012).
'Atomic Bomb: Soviet Union'. (googlebooks) (Dover ed.).
Soviet Nuclear Weapon Program Ww2
Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
'The Stalin Years: 194653'. Retrieved 12 June 2017. ^ Kean, Sam (2010). (googlebooks) (Sony eReader ed.).
New York: Little, Brown and Co. Retrieved 13 June 2017. ^ West, Nigel; Tsarev, Oleg (1999). 'Atom Secrets'. Yale University Press.
Retrieved 13 June 2017. Hamilton, William H.; Sasser, Charles W. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Retrieved 13 June 2017. ^ Hamblin, Jacob Darwin (2005). Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
^ Bukharin, Oleg; Hippel, Frank Von (2004). 'Making the First Nuclear Weapons'. Retrieved 14 June 2017. Burns, Richard Dean; Coyle III, Philip E. 'Seeking to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation'. (googlebooks) (1 ed.).
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Retrieved 15 June 2017.
^ Baggott, Jim (2011). Pegasus Books.
Retrieved 16 June 2017. Baggott, Jim (2011). Pegasus Books.
Retrieved 15 June 2017. ^ Schwartz, Michael I. Harvard University: Harvard University press. Retrieved 20 June 2017. There was no “Russian” atomic bomb. There only was an American one, masterfully discovered by Soviet spies.”. ^ Haynes, John Earl (2000).
'Industrial and Atomic Espionage'. Yale University, TX: Yale University Press. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
^ Romerstein, Herbert; Breindel, Eric (2000). Washington, DC: Regnery Pub. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
Powers, Daniel Patrcik Moynihan (1999). Gid, Richard, ed. Secrecy: the American experience (New preface. New Haven: Yale University Press. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union by Martin Mccauley.
Goncharov. Beginnings of the Soviet H-Bomb Program. ^ Zaloga, Steve (17 February 2002). The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces.
Smithsonian Books. The American counterpart to this idea was Edward Teller's Alarm Clock design of August 1946. In August 1990 the Soviet science journal Priroda published a special issue devoted to Andrei Sakharov, which contained more detailed notes on the early fusion bomb than Sakharov's own memoirs, especially the articles by V.E.
Ritus and Yu A. Romanov. Goncharov.
The Super Oralloy bomb was developed in Los Alamos and tested on 15 November 1952. Details of Soviet weapons designs after 1956-57 are generally lacking. A certain amount can be inferred from data about missile warheads, and in recent histories, the two nuclear-warhead development bureaus have begun to cautiously reveal which weapons they designed. Medvedev, Zhores.
Spokesman Books. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
World Nuclear Association. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
' March 13, 1950. Zoellner, Tom (2009). London: Penguin Books. Williams, Susan (2016). Spies in the Congo. New York: Public Affairs. Pp. 186–187, 217, 233.
Chronik der Wismut, Wismut GmbH 1999. Andryushin et al, 'Taming the Nucleus'. Retrieved 20 May 2015. The yield of the test has been estimated between 50 and 57.23 megatons by different sources over time.
Today all Russian sources use 50 megatons as the. See the section 'Was it 50 Megatons or 57?' Retrieved 11 May 2006. DeGroot, Gerard J. The Bomb: A Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005.
The Nuclear Weapon Archive. 3 September 2007.
Retrieved 23 August 2010. ^ Norris, Robert S., and Thomas B.
'Nuclear Weapons Tests and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions by the Soviet Union: August 29, 1949 to October 24, 1990.' Natural Resource Defense Council.
^ Goldman, Marvin. “The Russian Radiation Legacy: Its Integrated Impact and Lessons.” Environmental Health Perspectives 105.6 (1997): 1385-91. ^ Clay, R (April 2001). Environmental Health Perspectives. 109 (4): A162–A169. Taylor, Jerome (10 Sep 2009), 'The World's Worst Radiation Hotspot', The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media.
Bibliography. Holloway, David (1994), Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939–1956, Yale University Press,. Kojevnikov, Alexei (2004), Stalin's Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists, Imperial College Press,. (1995), Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, Simon & Schuster,.
External links., Wilson Center Digital Archive. Ilkaev, RI (2013), Phys. Usp., 56 (5): 502–509,:,:,.
Video archive of at. (official website)., PBS. ( in English). ( in Russian) — RDS-1, RDS-6, Tsar Bomba, and an ICBM warhead.
CIA Library.
On Friday evening, at the end of the final nuclear security summit of his tenure, President Barack Obama took a swipe at his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for standing in the way of nuclear disarmament. Obama’s remark was pointed, calling out Putin by name, and it cast a rare bit of light on the personal clash between the two presidents on an issue that both of them see as central to their legacies. “Because of the vision that he’s been pursuing of emphasizing military might,” Obama at the summit, “we have not seen the type of progress that I would have hoped for with Russia.”.
This was putting it lightly. Over the course of Obama’s presidency, Russia has managed to negotiate deep cuts to the U.S. Arsenal while substantially strengthening of its own. It has the treaty that limits the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe and, in the last few years, it has brought disarmament talks with the U.S.
To a complete standstill for the first time since the 1960s. In its rhetoric, Moscow has also returned to a habit of nuclear threats, while in its military exercises, it has begun to practice for a nuclear strike, to the NATO military alliance. But of all these stark reversions to the posture of the Cold War, nothing expressed Russia’s position on nuclear disarmament more clearly than Putin’s decision to skip the nuclear summit in Washington last week. Apart from North Korea, which was not invited to the talks, Russia was the only nuclear power not to send a senior delegate. The snub was no surprise. It was announced back on Nov. 5 in a from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which offered a curious explanation.
By influencing the policies of global watchdogs like the International Atomic Energy Agency, “Washington is trying to take the role of the main and the privileged ‘player’ in this sphere,” the statement said. In part because of this, “we have shared with our American colleagues our doubts about the ‘added value’ of the forum.” Russia therefore saw no need to participate, the Ministry said. Read More: A few days after that statement, the world got a more colorful reminder of Putin’s position on nuclear disarmament. During a with his top generals on Nov. 10, he accused the U.S.
Of trying to “neutralize” Russia’s nuclear arsenal by building a missile shield over Europe, one that could knock Russian rockets out of the sky. In response, he said, Russia would have to “strengthen the potential of its strategic nuclear forces,” including the deployment of “attack systems” capable of piercing any missile shield. As if on cue, a state television camera then zoomed in on a piece of paper that one of the generals was holding in his hand. It showed the plans for a nuclear device codenamed Status-6, complete with a curt definition of its purpose: “to create an extensive zone of radioactive contamination” along the enemy’s coast, rendering it uninhabitable “for a long time.”. Asked to comment the following day, Putin’s spokesman claimed the image had appeared in the nightly news by mistake. But the Kremlin’s mouthpiece newspaper then.
Soviet Nuclear Weapon Program Ww2
The warhead inside Status-6, it said, would likely be covered in cobalt, an element which would “guarantee the destruction of all living things” once it was irradiated and scattered by a nuclear explosion. Vladimir Dvorkin, a retired major general of the Russian strategic rocket forces, remembers such designs from his days developing nuclear submarines for the former Soviet Union. “It’s an old Soviet brainchild,” he told me by phone from Moscow. But he never expected to see it revived. In the 1990s and during first two years of Putin’s presidency, Dvorkin headed the main nuclear research directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The emphasis throughout those years was on cooperating with the U.S. To secure nuclear stockpiles and keep them out of the hands of terrorists. The reemergence of Status-6—even if more as a propaganda ploy than as an actual weapon—shows just how far relations have fallen since then.
“The idea is to creep up on the seaboard of the United States and set off a massive nuclear explosion,” says Dvorkin. “It’s being revived in order to spook the West.” Few in the West had expected to hear such spook stories again. For Americans, a nuclear arms race is the stuff of Cold War fiction.
But for Russians, or at least their leaders, the world still looks much as it did in the age of the nuclear arms race. Read More: That became clear to many of Obama’s top advisers soon after his Administration took office.
During a landmark in the spring of 2009, Obama described his vision for a nuclear-free world. The timing and venue were both highly symbolic. Earlier the same week, the newly-elected President had come to Europe for a summit of the NATO alliance, which had just extended membership to two more formerly communist nations, Albania and Croatia, moving the military bloc deeper into Moscow’s former zone of influence. Prague, too, had been a key Cold War battleground, and as Obama pointed out at the beginning of his speech, few people could have imagined in those years that the Czech Republic would eventually become a NATO member in 2004, standing as proof that Russian dominance of Eastern Europe was receding. “The Cold War has disappeared,” Obama told the city square packed with his Czech admirers. Yet the existence of nuclear weapons, he said, was its “most dangerous legacy.” He promised to work towards abolishing them. The previous week, the White House had begun talks with the Kremlin on an arms reduction treaty it called New Start.
But the two sides came to the table with very different ambitions. “We wanted to get rid of as many nuclear weapons as we could,” says Michael McFaul, who was then serving as Obama’s top adviser on Russian affairs.
The Kremlin did not seem to share that dream. During one at the Defense Ministry in Moscow early in 2010, Obama’s Prague speech came up in some idle conversation, McFaul says, and the Russians started laughing. “They said, ‘Yeah, of course you guys want a nuclear-free world, because then you would dominate the world with your conventional weapons.
Why would we ever want to do that?’”. For Russia, the Cold War had never simply disappeared. It had resulted in defeat and the loss of empire, leaving Russia’s rival of more than 40 years to dictate the terms of peace in Europe. By the time Putin took power in 2000, the only vestige of his country’s superpower status was its nuclear arsenal, which was still the biggest in the world. So he began to use it as a crutch. “Even in the darkest days of the Russian military, when they weren’t able to afford to pay their soldiers and fly their airplanes, they paid close attention to the readiness and modernization of their nuclear forces,” says David Ochmanek, who served as a U.S.
Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program
Air Force officer during the Cold War and, between 2009 and 2014, was the Pentagon’s top official for force development. “Their doctrine reflected this,” he says. Obama saw this as an opportunity.
He and Medvedev had taken office within a year of each other, and Obama had made it one of his foreign policy priorities to improve—or “reset”—troubled relations with Russia. Nuclear arms reduction was at the core of this agenda, and the two leaders pursued the talks with notable warmth and enthusiasm. From behind the scenes, however, Putin and his generals set rigid parameters for Medvedev.
Even with a new president, the balance of power in Russia had never really changed. “I always called Medvedev Putin’s lawyer,” says Gary Samore, who was then the White House coordinator for arms control and a lead negotiator of the treaty. “It was very clear who was calling the shots.”. As the negotiations moved ahead, Samore saw the Russians advancing two core priorities. Most of their nuclear warheads were still deployed in static, Soviet-era silos dug into the ground, and these could easily get taken out if the U.S.
Were ever to launch a surprise attack against Russia. “They were very vulnerable to a pre-emptive first strike,” says Samore.
What Russia needed most from the New Start treaty was a chance to get rid of this vulnerability and regain nuclear parity with the U.S. “Their priority first and foremost was to limit our capabilities,” he says, “and to buy time for the Russians to go through their strategic modernization program.” Obama was prepared to allow that. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. Security concerns had shifted away from the threat of nuclear war with Russia. The bigger American fear was the possibility that Moscow would let some of its nukes fall into the hands of terrorists, says Ivo Daalder, who served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO during negotiations on the New Start treaty.
“Russia as a military security concern wasn’t really on the agenda,” Daalder says. “The focus was really on cooperation.”.
Viacheslav Buinovsky, 41, walks toward a close friend as he takes some of his first steps using a prosthetic leg at Ortotech Service, a prosthetics workshop in Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. Buinovsky worked as a mechanic in Sumy Oblast prior to the Euromaidan revolution, in which he took an active role. He joined the Aidar Battalion, a volunteer unit, after the revolution and was severely wounded near Luhansk in September 2014. His right hand and right leg were amputated. 'I would like to return to fight, but I do not have the ability,' he said. 'What I can do to contribute from here, I will do. Everyone who was there would like to return back.
But not everyone can.' Vadym Dovhoruk, 23, a Ukrainian Special Forces soldier, lays in the intensive care ward at the city burn center in Kiev, Ukraine, March 25, 2015. He was near Debaltseve when his unit was shelled on the second day of the armistice commonly referred to as Minsk II. Dovhoruk was wounded in the attack and also suffered severe frostbite after spending three days in a forest, before being detained by Russian-supported separatist forces. He is now a triple amputee.
'We were ambushed,' he said at the time. 'I was informed yesterday about all the guys. Two others and I went missing.
One of them was buried yesterday. Another is in morgue in a Dnipropetrovsk, but his parents have not yet recovered his remains. They recognized him but are still waiting for the DNA test results. He was our commander.' Svitlana Kapusta, 29, wipes the brow of her husband, Sgt. Sergey Masan, a Ukrainian paratrooper from the southern region of Mykolaiv, as he recovers in a hospital in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, Sept. Masan sustained burns to 70% of his body and lost several fingers in a grad rocket attack in the village of Dyakovo, in Luhansk Oblast near the Russian border, in July 2014.
He spent approximately three months in the warzone and asserted that his brigade was frequently fired upon with grad rockets launched from Russia into Ukraine. 'Our life has changed completely,' Kapusta said. Artem Zapototsky, 34, undergoes physical therapy in a pool in Truskavets, Ukraine, Sept. The married father of two was severely wounded during the Euromaidan revolution on Feb. 20, 2014, when he was shot in the back as he stood unarmed on the footbridge that crosses above Instytutska Street.
The bullet damaged his spine before embedding near his left shoulder blade, where it remains today. Zapototsky is a lawyer from Lutsk, in the country's northwest; he aspires to regain the use of his legs and trains for approximately six hours a day while continuing his legal work. 'I am just very thankful that I already have children,' he said. 'I cannot imagine myself not walking again.'
Volodymyr Honcharovsky, 31, a married father of four children, works with a physical therapist at a training center in Truskavets, Ukraine, Oct. He was severely wounded on Feb. 20, 2014, when he was shot three times—twice in the back, once in the right arm—while attempting to reach wounded demonstrators who had been shot by security forces during the Euromaidan revolution in Kiev. Honcharovsky has feeling in his legs and can take small steps for short distances, but his legs have atrophied.
Often, it is extremely difficult for him to walk due to extreme pain caused by nerve damage. 'I pray and place my hope in the Lord that he will help me to stand on my legs,' he said. Honcharovsky is prepared for an X-ray at a hospital where he is undergoing physical therapy, Truskavets, Ukraine, Sept. He underwent multiple operations in Ukraine and Germany but still has significant medical issues, including extreme pain throughout his body due to nerve damage. 'I went to the Maidan on Feb.
I could not sit and watch the disorder from afar, the beating of children, students as well as their parents at the hands of the Berkut riot police,' he said. 'I could not wait and watch. My heart was being torn apart by what was happening in the country.'
Ivan Kushnerov, 25, rests on a couch in an apartment where he is staying temporarily in Kiev, Ukraine, March 4, 2015. Kushnerov, who lives in Zaporizhia, was severely wounded in Severodonetsk in November 2014 while serving in the 39th Territorial Defense Battalion of the Ukrainian army. His left hand and three fingers on his right hand were amputated, and he has problems with his vision and legs. He worked in advertising before the war and is currently studying part-time to become a journalist. 'I feel the pain. Sometimes it is phantom pain.
I often have a headache, and my scars ache. This pain is always with me. But, if you feel pain, it means you are alive,' he said. 'I am now distracted by a lot of things.
I require medical treatment, but I want to tighten my fists and go there to war because I am very worried about my guys. However, I realize that I will be only a burden for them now.' Roman Kubishkin, a 41-year-old construction worker, is fastened and raised into a vertical position to simulate his feeling of space and balance at a rehabilitation center in Brovary, Ukraine, July 28, 2015. This helps stimulate his brain to begin communicating with his body. He breathes through a tube in his neck and is fed through another tube that carries food directly into his stomach. Kubishkin had joined the right-wing coalition Right Sector and was based in Pisky, a village near the remains of Donetsk International Airport, when shells fired by separatist forces nearly killed him on Jan. His fellow soldiers thought he was dead due to a severe head trauma, in which Kubishkin lost much of the right side of his brain.
'Sixteen clinics refused to take Roman because he was in such difficult condition. Nodus was the only one,' said his mother, Iryna, referring to the modern neurological and neurosurgical rehabilitation center in Brovary, outside Kiev. His monthly care costs about $3,000 to $3,300, which is largely funded by donations and volunteers. On paper at least, the New Start treaty also looked impressive. Both sides agreed to cut their arsenals of long-range nuclear missiles in half and to reduce the number of warheads by around three-quarters. But in practice, the New Start treaty allowed Russia to scrap many of its old silo-based missile systems while pushing ahead with a wholesale upgrade of its broader arsenal.
“The treaty does not prevent you from modernizing,” says McFaul, who went on to become the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow from 2011 to 2013.
“In terms of parity, they felt like they needed to modernize, whereas we didn’t feel that way.” It will still take Russia at least until the end of this decade to complete its nuclear modernization program. But it is off to an impressive start. Moscow is building a new generation of long-range nuclear bombers, truck-mounted ballistic missiles and nuclear-armed submarines. In the past two years, Russian officials and state-run media have routinely boasted about the fruits these efforts, often under giddy headlines like this gem from the: “Rail Phantom: Russia developing invisible death trains with nukes.”. This seems far from the spirit of Medvedev’s term as president, which ended in 2012 with Putin’s return to the Kremlin’s top post.
The New Start treaty, Medvedev told me in mid-February, “was a great achievement in Russian-U.S. Relations, and it was good for the international situation.” Later in our, he added: “It’s a shame that things began to take a different path after that.” In the the foreseeable future, Medvedev said, Russia would have no choice but to develop weapons like Status-6 to balance against the enormous advantage the U.S.
Enjoys in conventional arms. (Washington spends more than seven times as much on defense as Russia, which will have to its military spending this year, thanks largely to a shrinking economy.) “Isn’t that scary? Yes, it is very scary,” Medvedev told me, referring to these weapons. “If hundreds or thousands of such missiles are used in an attack, the consequences will be just as devastating” as a nuclear strike. This point came back to the essential paradox of Russia’s position on nuclear weapons. It is the very real feeling of weakness and vulnerability that makes Russia cling to its most destructive and dangerous arms. And until Russia’s leaders are made to believe that the U.S.
Does not wish them any harm, Obama’s vision of a nuclear free world will never be realized. Obama admitted as much at the nuclear security summit in Washington. “It is very difficult,” he said at the closing news conference, “to see huge reductions in our nuclear arsenal unless the United States and Russia, as the two largest possessors of nuclear weapons, are prepared to lead the way.” From the start of his tenure, Obama tried to take that lead, likely believing that the Cold War had, as he put it, “disappeared.”.