Soviet nuclear weapons testing

hydrogen aerial bomb tested in 1961 by the Soviet Union; most powerful nuclear weapon ever created

The RDS-1 (), also known as First Lightning (), was the first nuclear weapons test that was conducted by the Soviet Union. It was detonated on 29 August 1949 at 7:00 a.m. Kazakhstan Time (decree time) (UTC+06:00), at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, and yielded 22 kilotons of TNT.

RDS-37 () was the Soviet Union's first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on 22 November 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test.

RDS-6s (; American codename: "Joe 4") was the first Soviet test of a boosted fission weapon that occurred on August 12, 1953, that detonated with an energy equivalent to 400 kilotons of TNT.

1954 soviet nuclear bombing test

RDS-3 () was the third atomic bomb developed by the Soviet Union in 1951, after the RDS-1 and RDS-2. It was called Marya in the military. The bomb had a composite design with a plutonium core inside a uranium shell, providing an explosive power of 41.2 kilotons. The RDS-3T () was a modernized version and the first mass-produced nuclear weapon by the Soviet Union. It was assigned to Long Range Aviation in 1953.

1965 Soviet underground nuclear test

RDS-4 (, also known as Tatyana) was a Soviet nuclear bomb that was first tested at Semipalatinsk Test Site, on August 23, 1953. The device weighed approximately . The device was approximately one-third the size of the RDS-3. The bomb was dropped from an IL-28 aircraft at an altitude of and exploded at , with a yield of 28 kt.

The RDS-2 (Russian: РДС-2) was a second nuclear bomb developed by the Soviet Union as an improved version of the RDS-1. It included new explosive lenses along with a new core design to decrease the probability of pre-detonation or 'fizzle'. The levitated core increased implosion efficiency by allowing for an empty space between the "flying layer" and the core, thereby allowing rapid acceleration of the shock wave before it impacted the core.

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1961–1962 series of Soviet weaponry tests

river in Kazakhstan

The Myrzhyk Range (), also spelled Murzhik (), is a mountain massif in the Zhanasemey District, Abai Region, Kazakhstan. The northwestern corner of the range is in Karkaraly District, Karaganda Region.

thumb|Location of Degelen within the Semipalatinsk Polygon. Degelen () is a mountain massif in the Zhanasemey District, Abai Region, Kazakhstan.