Scientist: Planet Hurt by Cold War
09:22 PM ET 08/29/99
MOSCOW (AP), On the 50th anniversary of the first Soviet atomic test, a
prominent Russian scientist said Sunday that the arms race had left behind massive
environmental damage that would take generations to repair. Soviet researchers
carried out their first experimental blast on Aug. 29, 1949, near the Semipalatinsk
testing ground in what is now part of northern Kazakstan.
The Cold War arms race ``has created environmental problems with which future
generations will have to contend,'' said Alexei Yablokov, a member of the Russian Academy
of Sciences and a former adviser to President Boris Yeltsin, now one of the country's
leading anti-nuclear campaigners.
``If the enormous human and material resources burnt in the furnace of the
nuclear arms race had been spent on the solution of global problems,'' many of them could
have been solved, Yablokov told the Interfax news agency.
Soviet citizens living near the Semipalatinsk testing ground were exposed to
dozens of above-ground tests, and these people and their descendants have suffered from
extremely high rates of cancer, birth defects and other serious illnesses. Ecologists say
there are several inhabited areas of Semipalatinsk that contain radiation levels unsafe
for humans.
Several churches held services in Semipalatinsk on Sunday to remember the people
who died because of the testing.
The Soviet Union, which dissolved in 1991, mounted its crash program to develop
nuclear weapons after the United States used atomic bombs against Japan at the end of
World War II in 1945. President Boris Yeltsin on Thursday praised the Soviet nuclear
program, saying it had helped preserve world peace.
``Half a century ago the selfless work of scientists, engineers, workers and
military men created a strong foundation for Russia's nuclear shield,'' Yeltsin said in a
message to the builders of the first Soviet weapon.
``That was an event of historic significance, which played an extremely
important role in maintaining durable peace on the planet,'' the message added.
Nuclear weapons remain an important part of Russia's defenses, although many
missiles are old and unsafe.
The United States and Russia have both been reducing their arsenals in recent
years, and each country now has about 6,000 strategic nuclear weapons.
The START II arms control treaty, signed by both countries but ratified only by
the United States, calls for the countries to cut their nuclear arsenals further to 3,000
to 3,500 warheads each.
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