List of nuclear weapons tests of the Soviet Union

The nuclear weapons tests of the Soviet Union were performed between 1949 and 1990 as part of the nuclear arms race. The Soviet Union conducted 715 nuclear tests using 969 total devices by official count, including 219 atmospheric, underwater, and space tests and 124 peaceful use tests.^[1] Most of the tests took place at the Southern Test Site in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan and the Northern Test Site at Novaya Zemlya. Other tests took place at various locations within the Soviet Union, including now-independent Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Turkmenistan.

^ Mikhailov, V. N., ed. (1996). "USSR Nuclear Weapons Tests and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions: 1949 through 1990" (PDF). Sarov, Russia: The Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy, and Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-06-22. Official numbers and those in the table differ due to eleven tests, all fizzles, cited in other references and the one bomb left in its shaft when the Russians abandoned the Semipalatinsk site to Kazakhstan.

[1] Mikhailov, V. N., ed. (1996). "USSR Nuclear Weapons Tests and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions: 1949 through 1990" (PDF). Sarov, Russia: The Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy, and Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-06-22. Official numbers and those in the table differ due to eleven tests, all fizzles, cited in other references and the one bomb left in its shaft when the Russians abandoned the Semipalatinsk site to Kazakhstan.

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