OPERATION "SNOWBALL" IN THE USSR.
50 years ago, the USSR carried out Operation Snowball.
September 14 marked the 50th anniversary of the tragic events at the Totsky training ground. What happened on September 14, 1954 in the Orenburg region was surrounded by a thick veil of secrecy for many years.
At 9:33 a.m., an explosion of one of the most powerful nuclear bombs of that time thundered over the steppe. Next on the offensive - past forests burning in a nuclear fire, villages razed to the ground - the "eastern" troops rushed into the attack.
The planes, striking ground targets, crossed the stem of the nuclear mushroom. 10 km from the epicenter of the explosion, in radioactive dust, among molten sand, the “Westerners” held their defense. More shells and bombs were fired that day than during the storming of Berlin.
All participants in the exercises were required to sign a non-disclosure of state and military secrets for a period of 25 years. Dying from early heart attacks, strokes and cancer, they could not even tell their attending physicians about their exposure to radiation. Few participants in the Totsk exercises managed to survive to this day. Half a century later, they told Moskovsky Komsomolets about the events of 1954 in the Orenburg steppe.
Preparing for Operation Snowball
“The entire end of summer, military trains from all over the Union were coming to the small Totskoye station. None of those arriving - not even the command of the military units - had any idea why they were here. Our train was met at each station by women and children. Handing us sour cream and eggs, women they lamented: “Dear ones, you’re probably going to China to fight,” says Vladimir Bentsianov, chairman of the Committee of Veterans of Special Risk Units.
In the early 50s, they were seriously preparing for the Third World War. After tests carried out in the USA, the USSR also decided to test a nuclear bomb in open areas. The location of the exercises - in the Orenburg steppe - was chosen due to its similarity with the Western European landscape.
“At first, combined arms exercises with a real nuclear explosion were planned to be held at the Kapustin Yar missile range, but in the spring of 1954, the Totsky range was assessed, and it was recognized as the best in terms of safety conditions,” Lieutenant General Osin recalled at one time.
Participants in the Totsky exercises tell a different story. The field where it was planned to drop a nuclear bomb was clearly visible.
“For the exercises, the strongest guys from our departments were selected. We were given personal service weapons - modernized Kalashnikov assault rifles, rapid-fire ten-round automatic rifles and R-9 radios,” recalls Nikolai Pilshchikov.
The tent camp stretches for 42 kilometers. Representatives of 212 units arrived at the exercises - 45 thousand military personnel: 39 thousand soldiers, sergeants and foremen, 6 thousand officers, generals and marshals.
Preparations for the exercise, code-named “Snowball,” lasted three months. By the end of summer, the huge Battlefield was literally dotted with tens of thousands of kilometers of trenches, trenches and anti-tank ditches. We built hundreds of pillboxes, bunkers, and dugouts.
On the eve of the exercise, officers were shown a secret film about the operation of nuclear weapons. “For this purpose, a special cinema pavilion was built, into which people were admitted only with a list and an identity card in the presence of the regiment commander and a KGB representative. Then we heard: “You have a great honor - for the first time in the world to act in real conditions of using a nuclear bomb.” It became clear , for which we covered the trenches and dugouts with logs in several layers, carefully coating the protruding wooden parts with yellow clay. “They should not have caught fire from light radiation,” recalled Ivan Putivlsky.
“Residents of the villages of Bogdanovka and Fedorovka, which were 5-6 km from the epicenter of the explosion, were asked to temporarily evacuate 50 km from the site of the exercise. They were taken out by troops in an organized manner; they were allowed to take everything with them. The evacuated residents were paid daily allowances throughout the entire period of the exercise,” - says Nikolai Pilshchikov.
“Preparations for the exercises were carried out under artillery cannonade. Hundreds of planes bombed designated areas. A month before the start, every day a Tu-4 plane dropped a “blank” - a mock-up of a bomb weighing 250 kg - into the epicenter,” recalled exercise participant Putivlsky.
According to the recollections of Lieutenant Colonel Danilenko, in an old oak grove, surrounded by mixed forest, a white limestone cross measuring 100x100 m was made. The training pilots aimed at it. The deviation from the target should not exceed 500 meters. Troops were stationed all around.
Two crews trained: Major Kutyrchev and Captain Lyasnikov. Until the very last moment, the pilots did not know who would be the main one and who would be the backup. Kutyrchev’s crew, who already had experience in flight testing an atomic bomb at the Semipalatinsk test site, had an advantage.
To prevent damage from the shock wave, troops located at a distance of 5-7.5 km from the epicenter of the explosion were ordered to remain in shelters, and further 7.5 km - in trenches in a sitting or lying position.
On one of the hills, 15 km from the planned epicenter of the explosion, a government platform was built to observe the exercises, says Ivan Putivlsky. - The day before it was painted with oil paints in green and white. Surveillance devices were installed on the podium. To the side of it from the railway station, an asphalt road was laid along the deep sands. The military traffic inspectorate did not allow any foreign vehicles onto this road."
“Three days before the start of the exercise, senior military leaders began to arrive at the field airfield in the Totsk area: Marshals of the Soviet Union Vasilevsky, Rokossovsky, Konev, Malinovsky,” recalls Pilshchikov. “Even the defense ministers of the people’s democracies, generals Marian Spychalsky, Ludwig Svoboda, Marshal Zhu-De and Peng-De-Huai. All of them were located in a government town pre-built in the area of the camp. A day before the exercises, Khrushchev, Bulganin and the creator of nuclear weapons, Kurchatov, appeared in Totsk.”
Marshal Zhukov was appointed head of the exercises. Around the epicenter of the explosion, marked with a white cross, military equipment was placed: tanks, planes, armored personnel carriers, to which “landing troops” were tied in trenches and on the ground: sheep, dogs, horses and calves.
From 8,000 meters, a Tu-4 bomber dropped a nuclear bomb on the test site
On the day of departure for the exercise, both Tu-4 crews prepared in full: nuclear bombs were suspended on each of the planes, the pilots simultaneously started the engines, and reported their readiness to complete the mission. Kutyrchev's crew received the command to take off, where Captain Kokorin was the bombardier, Romensky was the second pilot, and Babets was the navigator. The Tu-4 was accompanied by two MiG-17 fighters and an Il-28 bomber, which were supposed to conduct weather reconnaissance and filming, as well as guard the carrier in flight.
“On September 14, we were alerted at four o’clock in the morning. It was a clear and quiet morning,” says Ivan Putivlsky. “There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We were taken by car to the foot of the government podium. We sat tight in the ravine and took pictures. The first signal was through loudspeakers. The government rostrum sounded 15 minutes before the nuclear explosion: “The ice has moved!” 10 minutes before the explosion, we heard the second signal: “The ice is coming!” We, as we were instructed, ran out of the cars and rushed to the previously prepared shelters in the ravine. on the side of the podium. They lay down on their stomachs, with their heads towards the explosion, as they had been taught, with their eyes closed, their hands under their heads and their mouths open. The last, third signal sounded: “Lightning!” There was a hellish roar in the distance. 9 hours 33 minutes."
The carrier aircraft dropped the atomic bomb from a height of 8 thousand meters on the second approach to the target. The power of the plutonium bomb, code-named “Tatyanka,” was 40 kilotons of TNT—several times more than the one that exploded over Hiroshima. According to the memoirs of Lieutenant General Osin, a similar bomb was previously tested at the Semipalatinsk test site in 1951. Totskaya "Tatyanka" exploded at an altitude of 350 m from the ground. The deviation from the intended epicenter was 280 m in the northwest direction.
At the last moment, the wind changed: it carried the radioactive cloud not to the deserted steppe, as expected, but straight to Orenburg and further, towards Krasnoyarsk.
5 minutes after the nuclear explosion, artillery preparation began, then a bomber strike was carried out. Guns and mortars of various calibers, Katyusha rockets, self-propelled artillery units, and tanks buried in the ground began to speak. The battalion commander told us later that the density of fire per kilometer of area was greater than during the capture of Berlin, recalls Casanov.
“During the explosion, despite the closed trenches and dugouts where we were, a bright light penetrated there; after a few seconds we heard a sound in the form of a sharp lightning discharge,” says Nikolai Pilshchikov. “After 3 hours, an attack signal was received. The planes, striking strike on ground targets 21-22 minutes after the nuclear explosion, crossed the stem of the nuclear mushroom - the trunk of the radioactive cloud. I and my battalion in an armored personnel carrier followed 600 m from the epicenter of the explosion at a speed of 16-18 km/h. I saw it burned from the root to the top. forest, crumpled columns of equipment, burnt animals." At the very epicenter - within a radius of 300 m - there was not a single hundred-year-old oak tree left, everything was burned... The equipment a kilometer from the explosion was pressed into the ground...
“We crossed the valley, one and a half kilometers from which the epicenter of the explosion was located, wearing gas masks,” recalls Casanov. “Out of the corner of our eyes we managed to notice how piston aircraft, cars and staff vehicles were burning, the remains of cows and sheep were lying everywhere. The ground resembled slag and some kind of monstrous whipped consistency. 
The area after the explosion was difficult to recognize: the grass was smoking, scorched quails were running, bushes and copses had disappeared. Bare, smoking hills surrounded me. There was a solid black wall of smoke and dust, stench and burning. My throat was dry and sore, there was a ringing and noise in my ears... The Major General ordered me to measure the radiation level at the burning fire nearby with a dosimetric device. I ran up, opened the damper on the bottom of the device, and... the arrow went off scale. “Get in the car!” the general commanded, and we drove away from this place, which turned out to be close to the immediate epicenter of the explosion..."
Two days later - on September 17, 1954 - a TASS message was published in the Pravda newspaper: “In accordance with the plan of research and experimental work, in recent days a test of one of the types of atomic weapons was carried out in the Soviet Union. The purpose of the test was to study the effect atomic explosion. The testing obtained valuable results that will help Soviet scientists and engineers successfully solve problems of protection against atomic attack."
The troops completed their task: the country's nuclear shield was created.
Residents of the surrounding two-thirds of the burned villages dragged the new houses built for them log by log to the old - inhabited and already contaminated - places, collected radioactive grain in the fields, potatoes baked in the ground... And for a long time the old-timers of Bogdanovka, Fedorovka and the village of Sorochinskoye remembered strange glow from the wood. The woodpiles, made from trees charred in the area of the explosion, glowed in the darkness with a greenish fire.
Mice, rats, rabbits, sheep, cows, horses and even insects that visited the “zone” were subjected to close examination... “After the exercises, we only went through radiation control,” recalls Nikolai Pilshchikov. “The experts paid much more attention to what was given to us in day of training with dry rations, wrapped in an almost two-centimeter layer of rubber... He was immediately taken for examination. The next day, all soldiers and officers were transferred to a regular diet. The delicacies disappeared.”
They were returning from the Totsky training ground, according to the memoirs of Stanislav Ivanovich Casanov, they were not in the freight train in which they arrived, but in a normal passenger carriage. Moreover, the train was allowed through without the slightest delay. Stations flew past: an empty platform, on which a lonely stationmaster stood and saluted. The reason was simple. On the same train, in a special carriage, Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was returning from training.
“In Moscow, at the Kazansky station, the marshal had a magnificent welcome,” recalls Kazanov. “Our cadets of the sergeant school received neither insignia, nor special certificates, nor awards... We also did not receive the gratitude that Minister of Defense Bulganin announced to us anywhere later. ".
The pilots who dropped a nuclear bomb were awarded a Pobeda car for successfully completing this task. At the debriefing of the exercises, crew commander Vasily Kutyrchev received the Order of Lenin and, ahead of schedule, the rank of colonel from the hands of Bulganin.
The results of combined arms exercises using nuclear weapons were classified as “top secret.”
Participants in the Totsk exercises were not given any documents; they appeared only in 1990, when they were equal in rights to Chernobyl survivors.
Of the 45 thousand military personnel who took part in the Totsk exercises, a little more than 2 thousand are now alive. Half of them are officially recognized as disabled people of the first and second groups, 74.5% have diseases of the cardiovascular system, including hypertension and cerebral atherosclerosis, another 20.5% have diseases of the digestive system, 4.5% have malignant neoplasms and blood diseases.
Ten years ago in Totsk - at the epicenter of the explosion - a memorial sign was erected: a stele with bells. Every September 14, they will ring in memory of all those affected by radiation at the Totsky, Semipalatinsk, Novozemelsky, Kapustin-Yarsky and Ladoga test sites.
Rest, O Lord, the souls of your departed servants...
Since the first atomic explosion, code-named Trinity, on July 16, 1945, nearly two thousand atomic bomb tests have been conducted, most of them in the 1960s and 1970s.
When this technology was new, tests were carried out frequently, and they were quite a spectacle.
All of them led to the development of newer and more powerful nuclear weapons. But since the 1990s, governments around the world have begun to limit future testing, such as the US moratorium and the UN Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
A selection of photographs from the first 30 years of atomic bomb testing:
Upshot-Knothole Grable nuclear test explosion in Nevada on May 25, 1953. A 280-millimeter nuclear projectile was fired from the M65 cannon, detonated in the air - about 150 meters above the ground - and produced an explosion with a yield of 15 kilotons. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Open wiring of a nuclear device codenamed The Gadget (unofficial name of the Trinity project) - the first atomic test explosion. The device was prepared for the explosion that occurred on July 16, 1945. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Shadow of Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Jay Robert Oppenheimer overseeing the assembly of the Gadget projectile. (U.S. Department of Defense)
The 200-ton steel Jumbo container used in the Trinity project was made to recover the plutonium in case the explosive suddenly started a chain reaction. In the end, Jumbo was not useful, but he was placed near the epicenter to measure the effects of the explosion. Jumbo survived the explosion, but his supporting frame did not. (U.S. Department of Defense)
The growing fireball and blast wave of the Trinity explosion 0.025 seconds after the explosion on July 16, 1945. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Long exposure photo of the Trinity explosion a few seconds after detonation. (U.S. Department of Defense)
The fireball of the “fungus” of the world’s first atomic explosion. (U.S. Department of Defense)
US troops watch an explosion during Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946. This was the fifth atomic explosion after the first two test bombs and the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (U.S. Department of Defense)
A nuclear mushroom and a column of spray in the sea during a nuclear bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. This was the first underwater atomic test explosion. After the explosion, several former warships ran aground. (AP Photo)
A huge nuclear mushroom after a bomb exploded on Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946. The dark dots in the foreground are ships placed specifically in the path of the blast wave to test what it would do to them. (AP Photo)
On November 16, 1952, a B-36H bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the northern part of Runit Island on Enewetak Atoll. The result was an explosion with a yield of 500 kilotons and a diameter of 450 meters. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Operation Greenhouse took place in the spring of 1951. It consisted of four explosions at the Pacific Nuclear Test Site in the Pacific Ocean. This is a photo of the third test, codenamed "George", conducted on May 9, 1951. It was the first explosion to burn deuterium and tritium. Power - 225 kilotons. (U.S. Department of Defense)
The "rope tricks" of a nuclear explosion, captured less than one millisecond after the explosion. During Operation Tumbler Snapper in 1952, this nuclear device was suspended 90 meters above the Nevada desert on mooring cables. As the plasma spread, the emitted energy overheated and vaporized the cables above the fireball, resulting in these “spikes.” (U.S. Department of Defense)
During Operation Upshot Knothole, a group of mannequins were placed in the dining room of a house to test the effects of a nuclear explosion on houses and people. March 15, 1953. (AP Photo/Dick Strobel)
This is what happened to them after the nuclear explosion. (U.S. Department of Defense)
In the same house number two, on the second floor, there was another mannequin lying on the bed. In the window of the house you can see a 90-meter steel tower on which a nuclear bomb will soon explode. The purpose of the test explosion is to show people what would happen if a nuclear explosion occurred in an American city. (AP Photo/Dick Strobel)
A damaged bedroom, windows and blankets that disappeared to God knows where after the test explosion of an atomic bomb on March 17, 1953. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Mannequins representing a typical American family sit in the living room of Test House 2 at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. (AP Photo)
The same “family” after the explosion. Some were scattered throughout the living room, others simply disappeared. (U.S. Department of Defense)
During Operation Plumb at the Nevada nuclear test site on August 30, 1957, a shell detonated from a balloon in the Yucca Flat Desert at an altitude of 228 meters. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
Test explosion of a hydrogen bomb during Operation Redwing over Bikini Atoll on May 20, 1956. (AP Photo)
Ionization glow around a cooling fireball in the Yucca Desert at 4:30 a.m. on July 15, 1957. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
The flash of an air-to-air missile's nuclear warhead exploding at 7:30 a.m. on July 19, 1957, at Indian Springs Air Force Base, 48 km from the explosion site. In the foreground is the Scorpion aircraft of the same type. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
The fireball of the Priscilla shell on June 24, 1957 during the Plumb series of operations. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
NATO officials observe an explosion during Operation Boltzmann on May 28, 1957. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
The tail section of a US Navy airship after a nuclear weapons test in Nevada on August 7, 1957. The airship was floating in free flight, more than 8 km from the epicenter of the explosion, when it was overtaken by the blast wave. There was no one in the airship. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
Observers during Operation Hardtack I, the 1958 thermonuclear bomb explosion. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
The Arkansas test was part of Operation Dominic, a series of more than 100 explosions in Nevada and the Pacific Ocean in 1962. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Part of the Fishbowl Bluegill series of high-altitude nuclear tests, a 400-kiloton explosion in the atmosphere, 48 km above the Pacific Ocean. View from above. October 1962. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Rings around a nuclear mushroom during the Yeso test project in 1962. (U.S. Department of Defense)
Sedan Crater was formed by the detonation of 100 kilotons of explosives 193 meters below the soft desert sediments of Nevada on July 6, 1962. The crater turned out to be 97 meters deep and 390 meters in diameter. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
Photo of the French government's nuclear explosion on Mururoa Atoll in 1971. (AP Photo)
The same nuclear explosion on Mururoa Atoll. (Pierre J. / CC BY NC SA)
The “Surviving City” was built 2,286 meters from the epicenter of a 29-kiloton nuclear explosion. The house remained practically intact. The "survival city" consisted of houses, office buildings, shelters, power sources, communications, radio stations and "living" vans. The test, codenamed Apple II, took place on May 5, 1955. (U.S. Department of Defense)
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On July 29, 1985, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev announced the decision of the USSR to unilaterally stop any nuclear explosions before January 1, 1986. We decided to talk about five famous nuclear test sites that existed in the USSR.
Semipalatinsk test site
The Semipalatinsk Test Site is one of the largest nuclear test sites in the USSR. It also came to be known as SITP. The test site is located in Kazakhstan, 130 km northwest of Semipalatinsk, on the left bank of the Irtysh River. The landfill area is 18,500 sq km. On its territory is the previously closed city of Kurchatov. The Semipalatinsk test site is famous for the fact that the first nuclear weapons test in the Soviet Union was conducted here. The test was carried out on August 29, 1949. The bomb's yield was 22 kilotons.
On August 12, 1953, the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge with a yield of 400 kilotons was tested at the test site. The charge was placed on a tower 30 m above the ground. As a result of this test, part of the test site was very heavily contaminated with radioactive products of the explosion, and a small background remains in some places to this day. On November 22, 1955, the RDS-37 thermonuclear bomb was tested over the test site. It was dropped by an airplane at an altitude of about 2 km. On October 11, 1961, the first underground nuclear explosion in the USSR was carried out at the test site. From 1949 to 1989, at least 468 nuclear tests were carried out at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, including 125 atmospheric and 343 underground nuclear test explosions.
Nuclear tests have not been carried out at the test site since 1989.
Test site on Novaya Zemlya
The test site on Novaya Zemlya was opened in 1954. Unlike the Semipalatinsk test site, it was removed from populated areas. The nearest large settlement - the village of Amderma - was located 300 km from the test site, Arkhangelsk - more than 1000 km, Murmansk - more than 900 km.
From 1955 to 1990, 135 nuclear explosions were carried out at the test site: 87 in the atmosphere, 3 underwater and 42 underground. In 1961, the most powerful hydrogen bomb in human history, the 58-megaton Tsar Bomba, also known as Kuzka’s Mother, was exploded on Novaya Zemlya.
In August 1963, the USSR and the USA signed a treaty banning nuclear tests in three environments: in the atmosphere, outer space and under water. Limitations were also adopted on the power of the charges. Underground explosions continued to occur until 1990.
Totsky training ground
The Totsky training ground is located in the Volga-Ural Military District, 40 km east of the city of Buzuluk. In 1954, tactical military exercises under the code name “Snowball” were held here. The exercise was led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The purpose of the exercise was to test the capabilities of breaking through enemy defenses using nuclear weapons. Materials related to these exercises have not yet been declassified.
During an exercise on September 14, 1954, a Tu-4 bomber dropped an RDS-2 nuclear bomb with a yield of 38 kilotons of TNT from an altitude of 8 km. The explosion was carried out at an altitude of 350 m. 600 tanks, 600 armored personnel carriers and 320 aircraft were sent to attack the contaminated territory. The total number of military personnel who took part in the exercises was about 45 thousand people. As a result of the exercise, thousands of its participants received varying doses of radioactive radiation. Participants in the exercises were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which resulted in the victims being unable to tell doctors about the causes of their illnesses and receive adequate treatment.
Kapustin Yar
The Kapustin Yar training ground is located in the northwestern part of the Astrakhan region. The test site was created on May 13, 1946 to test the first Soviet ballistic missiles.
Since the 1950s, at least 11 nuclear explosions have been carried out at the Kapustin Yar test site at altitudes ranging from 300 m to 5.5 km, the total yield of which is approximately 65 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. On January 19, 1957, a Type 215 anti-aircraft guided missile was tested at the test site. It had a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead, designed to combat the main US nuclear strike force - strategic aviation. The missile exploded at an altitude of about 10 km, hitting the target aircraft - two Il-28 bombers controlled by radio control. This was the first high air nuclear explosion in the USSR.
Russia intends to resume non-nuclear explosive testing at the Central Nuclear Test Site on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Such experiments do not run counter to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and make it possible to assess the combat effectiveness of nuclear weapons as part of a program to extend their service life. Probably, in order to accomplish this task, the Russian Ministry of Defense intends to strengthen its military presence on the archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.
Information about plans for the military development of Novaya Zemlya and the nuclear test site on this archipelago began to gradually leak into the media from the beginning of September 2012. Thus, on September 4, Colonel Yuri Sych, head of the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, responsible for nuclear technical support and safety, announced that the test site on Novaya Zemlya is being maintained in readiness to conduct non-nuclear explosive experiments and full-scale nuclear tests.
On September 28, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, with reference to the state corporation Rosatom, wrote that non-nuclear explosive experiments on Novaya Zemlya will be resumed. The same information was confirmed by Jane’s agency on October 4, also citing a source in Rosatom. Against this background, the message about the intention of the Russian Ministry of Defense to strengthen its military presence in the archipelago received an additional logical explanation.
At the end of September, troops of the Western Military District completed exercises of an interspecific group of troops and forces of the Russian Northern Fleet. More than 7,000 military personnel, about 20 ships and submarines, 30 aircraft and 150 pieces of military equipment took part in them. Various episodes of the exercise were practiced in the Barents and Kara seas, on the Sredny and Rybachy peninsulas, as well as off the coast of Novaya Zemlya.
Currently, about 70% of nuclear weapons in Russia's arsenal are obsolete , produced back in Soviet times. At the same time, the service life of some of these weapons has already been extended several times, and will continue to be extended. In particular, NPO Mashinostroyenia intends to extend the warranty service life of liquid-propellant ballistic missiles UR-100N UTTH to 35-36 years (currently it is 33 years). The missiles will serve as part of Russia's nuclear shield for at least another 20 years.
Non-nuclear explosive tests on Novaya Zemlya will be resumed at the test site in the Matochkin Shar Strait, separating the northern Novaya Zemlya island from the southern one. This strait has a depth of about 12 meters, a width of 600 meters, anchorages, as well as high, often steep banks. Such a test site is considered the best place for non-nuclear experiments.
EXPLOSION WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES
Extending the service life of strategic missile systems is actually carried out in two main stages. The capabilities of the missiles themselves, acting as carriers of nuclear weapons, are periodically tested through test launches. In this case, the missile warhead is replaced by a mass-dimensional mockup. Such test firing, in particular, is carried out at the Kura training ground in Kamchatka. The second stage is assessing the service life of warheads, and it is becoming increasingly important within the framework of existing programs to extend the service life of strategic missiles.
To assess the residual life of warheads and their combat effectiveness, Russia conducts non-nuclear explosive experiments (they are also called subcritical or subcritical nuclear tests). They are not subject to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by Russia in 1996, because such experiments do not cause environmental contamination, radioactive emissions or powerful seismic vibrations.
Currently, two main options for non-nuclear explosive tests are being carried out - using isotopes of uranium or plutonium (235U and 239Pu), which have already passed a certain storage period, or fragments of nuclear charges. In such experiments, a chemical explosive is detonated, the blast wave from which compresses the materials under study (in the case of fragments of nuclear charges, compression does not occur from all sides in order to avoid the occurrence of a nuclear reaction).
In general, such experiments allow researchers to gain insight into the physical processes occurring in nuclear charges, determine the remaining storage life of warheads and confirm their reliability. In addition, thanks to such experiments, it becomes possible to evaluate the effect of long-term storage on the design of warheads and the materials used in them, as well as the possibility of replacing some materials with others.
There is no longer any need to study the destructive potential of a nuclear charge. During previous nuclear explosions in the USSR from 1954 to 1990, scientists obtained enough data to predict the consequences of a nuclear explosion of a given power, carried out on the ground, underground, in the air, on water or under water. At the Novaya Zemlya test site alone, 130 nuclear explosions were carried out (1 land, 3 underwater, 85 air, 2 surface and 39 underground), including the test of the 58-megaton bomb AN602.
During non-nuclear explosive tests, the share of energy released during the explosion of a nuclear substance itself does not exceed 0.1 micrograms of TNT equivalent or 0.0041 joule. The experiments carried out in Russia have four levels of protection, which are believed to completely eliminate any negative consequences, such as the leakage of radioactive materials into the soil or water. When conducting subcritical nuclear tests, researchers are no more than 30 meters from the epicenter.
In preparation for testing, a mock-up of a nuclear device is placed in a special container covered with bentonite clay. This container is lowered into a pre-prepared adit, which is then concreted.
In the event of an explosion, the main protective function is performed by the container, however, in the event of a breakthrough, the bentonite clay vitrifies under the influence of heat from the chemical explosive, clogging possible cracks in the adit and clogging parts of the nuclear device in the glass mass.
It is not clear why reports about Russia resuming subcritical nuclear tests began to appear now. It is curious that Russia has never announced the cessation of such experiments. Moreover, in September 2010, Vladimir Verkhovtsev, who then held the position of head of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, stated that non-nuclear explosive experiments were being conducted in the country.
« In the absence of full-scale nuclear tests, non-nuclear explosive experiments, which are not accompanied by the release of nuclear energy, serve as a mandatory tool for monitoring the performance, reliability and safety of nuclear charges.“Verkhovtsev said, noting that such tests are carried out jointly by the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Rosatom state corporation at the Central Test Site on Novaya Zemlya.
LOOPHOLE IN THE LAW
Subcritical nuclear tests are, in fact, a kind of loophole to circumvent the provisions of the CTBT. The relevance of such experiments in recent years has increased significantly not only in Russia, but also in the United States and other countries of the nuclear club, which formed their main stockpiles of such weapons in the 1960-1970s.
Subcritical tests make it possible not only to extend the service life or modernize existing nuclear warheads, but also to develop new ones. In the latter case, computer modeling is also actively used. However, not all experts are confident in the suitability of subcritical tests for the development of new weapons.
CTBT
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has so far been signed by 182 states. It was not signed by India, Pakistan and North Korea, which have nuclear weapons. The treaty was ratified by 157 countries, but the United States, China, Israel, Iran and Egypt refused to ratify it.The implementation of the treaty, which has not yet entered into force, is monitored by an international monitoring system, which includes 170 seismic stations, 60 infrasound, 80 radionuclide and 11 hydroacoustic laboratories located around the world. Such a system makes it possible to detect nuclear explosions with a yield of at least 0.1 kilotons of TNT, and for some regions of the Earth this threshold is 0.01 kilotons.
In November 2011, the British group Trident Commission, created by the American-British research organization BASIC, released a report according to which the cost of developing the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States in the next ten years will amount to about 770 billion dollars. The United States will spend most of this amount—$700 billion—on its nuclear weapons. We are talking about modernizing the W78 warheads, extending the service life of the W76 warheads, B61 bombs, developing a new NGB bomber, the SSBN(X) strategic nuclear submarine and new missiles.
Russia will spend its 70 billion dollars on the deployment of new mobile systems, the adoption of modernized missiles (project), new ICBMs, Project 955 Borei submarines, the development of a promising long-range aviation complex (), as well as extending the service life of the existing one strategic weapons.
The budget for 2011-2013, approved by the Russian State Duma at the end of 2010, provides for an increase in spending on the nuclear complex by almost 4 billion rubles. In 2010, expenses on the Russian nuclear weapons complex amounted to 18.8 billion rubles, in 2011 this figure increased to 26.9 billion rubles, in 2012 - to 27.5 billion rubles, and in 2013 this the figure will already be 30.3 billion rubles.
The increase in the pace of non-nuclear explosive experiments is also evidence that major world powers have entered a new phase of the nuclear arms race. Despite the desire to reduce the number of nuclear warheads, legally enshrined in the START-3 treaty, the United States and Russia have moved to qualitatively improve such weapons. This was facilitated, in particular, by the US decision to deploy a missile defense system in Europe.
In 2006, after visiting Novaya Zemlya, Sergei Ivanov, then the Russian Minister of Defense, said that the test site on the archipelago was maintained in constant readiness and nuclear tests could be resumed there at any time. However, he noted that some countries have not ratified the CTBT, which means that Russia, in the interests of its own security, will resume full-scale nuclear tests if necessary.
