Nuclear weapons: the evolution of this deadly technology and the contributions made by Ukrainian scientists (photos, videos).

Nuclear threats from Russia and the potential of this type of weapon are once again sparking discussions about the necessity of such armaments in Ukraine. "Telegraph" recalls how the invention of nuclear weapons developed worldwide, how a Ukrainian was involved in the Nagasaki explosion, and why the Soviet government's distrust of Kharkiv scientists relegated the USSR to a secondary role in atomic weapon development.

The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was a research initiative launched during World War II aimed at producing the first nuclear weapon. From 1942 to 1946, Major General Leslie Groves from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers led the project. In early 1943, General Groves established a laboratory for bomb design and development in Los Alamos, New Mexico, collaborating with some of the world's leading scientists under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

One of these scientists was Georgy Kostiakovsky (1900-1982). Born in Kyiv, he received a solid education and was forced to emigrate after the 1917 revolution. However, he managed to fight in the ranks of the White Army. Kostiakovsky earned his doctorate at the University of Berlin in 1925 and later moved to the USA, where he taught.

Kostiakovsky joined the Manhattan Project in late January 1944 and became the head of the implosion department. Under his leadership, complex explosive lenses were developed, essential for uniformly compressing the plutonium sphere to achieve critical mass. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki was plutonium-based. Together with the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, they resulted in the deaths of at least 200,000 people.

The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people and cost almost 2 billion U.S. dollars (equivalent to approximately 27 billion dollars in 2023).

The Soviet Nuclear Program and Ukrainians Involved

Before the war, Ukrainian scientists were at the forefront of nuclear research in the Soviet Union. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Ukrainian Physical-Technical Institute (UFTI) in Kharkiv was a leader in nuclear physics within the Soviet Union. In 1932, scientists from the institute were the first in the world to replicate experiments by English scientists on nuclear fission using fast protons.

In 1940, two young atomic physicists from the institute, V.V. Shpinel and V. Maslov, proposed the first functioning scheme for producing nuclear explosive material—they figured out how to produce weapon-grade uranium and developed specific technical proposals to achieve this goal through uranium enrichment using centrifuges. However, the young scientists faced enough criticism to halt their research.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union and bureaucratic skepticism in Moscow towards the scientists' ideas prevented Kharkiv from becoming the center of Soviet nuclear development—most physics and weapons laboratories eventually concentrated in Russia. In 1942, Soviet physicist Georgy Flerov sent secret letters to Stalin warning about the dangers of delaying the development of atomic weapons and emphasizing its critical importance. Following this, Stalin recalled physicists from military service and assigned the leadership of the atomic bomb project to Igor Kurchatov and Anatoly Alexandrov.

Anatoly Alexandrov was born in the Kyiv region in 1903, graduated from school in Kyiv, and fought in the army of Wrangel against Soviet troops. However, he did not escape with them to Turkey. He later studied at the physics and mathematics department of Kyiv University and taught in schools. After graduating in 1930, Alexandrov received an invitation from physicist Abram Ioffe to work in Leningrad. During World War II, he and Igor Kurchatov developed a demagnetization system for ships to protect against German naval mines, known as LPTI.

In 1943, their laboratory split from the Ioffe Institute and moved to Moscow to work on the Soviet atomic project. From 1946 to 1955, Alexandrov served as the director of the Institute of Physical Problems, succeeding Peter Kapitsa (who was one of the critics of the Kharkiv atomic scientists). He made significant contributions to the development of the USSR's atomic program.

When the Soviet Union learned about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, all resources were mobilized to catch up. In August 1949, the USSR successfully tested its first atomic bomb, becoming the second nuclear state. Much of this was due to espionage.

Previously, "Telegraph" reported that Ukraine could create its nuclear weapons, according to Western analysts. The country has the potential for developing a plutonium bomb. In 1991, Ukraine possessed the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world—over the next five years, it relinquished it in exchange for security guarantees that evidently did not materialize.