Secret developments of the USSR. Part I: Meteorological weapons. Many people have heard about the American project HAARP lately. Meanwhile, back in 1981, the USSR developed and put into operation a Russian analogue called Sura, which is still in operation. After commissioning. when Sura was just beginning to be actively used, interesting anomalous phenomena were observed in the atmosphere above it. Many workers have seen strange glows, burning red balls hanging motionless or flying at high speed in the sky. - This is not a UFO, but only a luminescent glow of plasma formations. - explains the researcher of the installation Yuri Tokarev. At the moment, work on the study of the glow of the ionosphere under active influence is one of the important areas of research.

"Sura"

“It is possible to influence the weather, but not on such a large scale as, for example, causing the most powerful hurricanes. Neither we, nor they, I mean the Americans - so far no one knows how to do this, - continues Yuri Tokarev. – The capacity of the installations is not enough. Even the capacity that they want to bring HAARP to in the near future will not be enough to effectively arrange natural disasters.” In the early 1980s, active research was carried out in the field of creating plasma generators and their effect on the Earth's ionosphere. The experiments, as scientists now admit, had a military purpose and were developed to disrupt the location and radio communications of a potential enemy, that is, the United States. Plasma formations created by installations in the ionosphere jammed American early warning systems for missile launches. But the aggressive impact on the ionosphere gave side effects. With certain perturbations of the ionosphere, slight changes in the atmosphere began to be observed. “The first tests of the ion generator brought a lot of interesting results,” said Mikhail Shakhramanyan, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. – During the operation of the device, the flow of oxygen ions rises, causing, depending on the selected mode, a local break in the clouds or the formation of clouds. In April 2004, near Yerevan, we achieved the formation of cumulonimbus clouds in a clear sky with the help of two GIONK-type devices. On April 15–16, 25–27 mm of precipitation fell in Yerevan, which is approximately 50% of the monthly norm.” Now Sura works about 100 hours a year. The institute does not have enough money for electricity for heating experiments.
Only one day of intensive work of the stand can deprive the polygon of the monthly budget. Americans conduct experiments on HAARP for 2000 hours a year, that is, 20 times more. The size of appropriations according to the most rough estimates is 300 million dollars a year. Russian science spends only $40,000 for similar purposes, almost 7,500 times less. Meanwhile, soon HAARP should reach its design capacity of 3.5 gigawatts, which is already an order of magnitude higher than the capacity of Sura.


Secret developments of the USSR. Meteorological weapon.

“If it goes on like this, we risk losing the main thing, namely the understanding of what is happening there,” says Savely Grach, one of the NIRFI scientists, professor at the University of Nizhny Novgorod. - Both Sura and HAARP are not weapons, but only research laboratories. But the processes worked out on them, in the future, it is quite possible that they will be used for military purposes. You should not hope that the Americans will give up the temptation to build something special with fantastic characteristics for a simple layman. But then it will be too late to catch up. Now, despite the general lack of money in the 90s, we are still superior to the Americans in understanding the processes taking place in the ionosphere. But the material and technical base is being destroyed, people are leaving abroad, and the gap is shrinking incredibly.”


Secret developments of the USSR. Meteorological weapon "Sura"

“It's just a miracle that Sura was preserved at all,” said Georgy Komrakov, head of the test site, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. - Personally, I, no longer a young man, at night I myself sat with an ax in ambushes, watching for hunters for non-ferrous metal. Here, on an area of ​​​​several football fields, it is not so easy to keep track of them in the dark. Imagine what efforts were required to save the installation with two village watchmen, who themselves are not averse to stealing. For example, one of the NIRFI test sites was looted to the ground in the nineties. Now it is not functioning. “Sura” could suffer the same fate.”

Over the past hundred years, mankind has managed to unravel almost more mysteries of nature than in all previous history. And - this is how a person works - he strives to try out any new knowledge as a weapon. Understanding the processes that shape the climate and influencing the weather, as well as the ability to influence these processes, has become the starting point for the development of climate weapons ...

Alexander Petrov



The failure of the Americans to call an artificial tsunami is explained by the fact that the peculiarity of this natural phenomenon is the movement of the wave throughout the entire water column. This is possible mainly with tectonic movements that occur during earthquakes.



The American Popeye operation in Vietnam involved dispersing finely dispersed silver iodide, resulting in a threefold increase in rainfall and one and a half times in rainfall duration.


Protracted heavy rains can be combined with the hydrospheric trend in the development of geophysical weapons and cause flooding of vast areas. Something similar happened in Vietnam in 1971, when the aftermath of Operation Popeye contributed to devastating flooding.

What could be more deadly, and therefore more suitable for military purposes, than natural disasters? Droughts, abnormally severe frosts, prolonged rains and snowfalls can negatively affect the economies of states and regions; tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes sweep cities off the face of the earth, human casualties in this case amount to tens or even hundreds of thousands ... But you can also remember earthquakes, floods, forest fires and mountain avalanches. What happens if you turn all this into a weapon?

Most often, adherents of conspiracy theories write on this topic on the pages of the tabloid press. The topic of climate weapons is an expanse for a conspiracy theorist: it is theoretically possible, but no one really knows about practical tests; it does not exist - but at the same time it is prohibited; it can be arbitrarily sophisticated, it is impossible to protect oneself from it - and, most importantly, even if it is applied, it cannot be proved that it was precisely an attack, and not an accidental whim of elemental forces. Following the conspiracy theorists, the idea is picked up by journalists, public figures, politicians, and even some scientists who are greedy for sensations. Especially when there is a reason for it. Thus, the circumstances of the summer of 2010, which was extremely hot in the European part of Russia and was accompanied by forest fires, provoked a mass of publications and statements, from paranoid to completely justified from a scientific point of view. In 2007, when Hurricane Katrina raged over Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, the Americans blamed the Russians for the disaster. Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, accused the United States of being involved in the earthquakes in China and Haiti in 2010, etc.

Theoretically, it is possible to use natural disasters for military purposes, and there have even been certain studies and precedents.

A bit of history

If at the beginning of the 20th century the ability of a person to influence weather processes seemed fantastic, then already in the 1940s the first experiments in this area were carried out. Scientists from a number of countries, including the USSR, investigated the causes of the formation of clouds and fogs; by 1954, it was unequivocally proven that if clouds were artificially supercooled, precipitation would fall.

Experiments were carried out in which small particles of solid carbon dioxide (dry ice), an aerosol of silver iodide or lead iodide, and other substances that promote crystallization or enlargement of water droplets were sprayed - "sown" - from aircraft or with the help of special rockets. Initially, these studies had purely peaceful purposes: to make rain over arid territories, or, conversely, to prevent rain - or, worse, hail - from reaching agricultural land, completely “shedding” the cloud over an area where precipitation will not cause harm. However, these technologies were soon applied for military purposes.

From 1967 to 1972, during the Vietnam War, the Americans carried out Operation Popeye: during the rainy season, they scattered finely dispersed silver iodide from transport aircraft, as a result of which the amount of precipitation tripled, and the duration of the rains - one and a half times. The goal of the operation was to destroy the lines of communication that the rebels used to communicate with the north, primarily the so-called Ho Chi Minh trail - and here the United States achieved some success, turning the roads into a continuous swamp.

Simultaneously with studies of cloudiness and precipitation, experiments were carried out to control typhoons and hurricanes - cyclones that form annually in tropical latitudes and often cause destructive storms. During the Stormfury project, American scientists tried to disperse the cloud mass in one of the sections of the cyclone in order to upset its balance and thereby either extinguish it or force it to change its trajectory. It would seem that the most peaceful goal - but, for example, in 1969, trying to turn a hurricane away from the densely populated coast of their country, American researchers, without a doubt, were going to send it to the shores of Panama and Nicaragua.

It was obvious that all methods of active influence on geophysical processes could have a militaristic background, and in 1976, at the initiative of the Soviet Union, an international convention No. United States.

Project HAARP and similar

Before moving on to the story of what climate weapons can actually be, we should make a digression and devote a few words to the HAARP project - after all, not a single publication of a conspiracy sense is complete without mentioning it. Almost all the natural disasters that have happened on Earth over the past 20 years are attributed to this supposedly newest secret superweapon of the Americans. It, according to sensation lovers, is capable of causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, significantly changing the temperature, starting forest fires and burning any part of the territory in the Northern Hemisphere, sending hurricanes, “dropping” planes, ballistic missiles and satellites. Sometimes in such publications, the Sura project, created in the Soviet Union, is also mentioned as a kind of counterbalance to HAARP.

The HAARP project (an abbreviation for the Active High-Frequency Ionosphere Research Program) was indeed launched by the States in 1993 at a test site near the area of ​​Gakona, Alaska. But this project is by no means unique and far from being the first of its kind.

Such complexes, called ionospheric heating facilities, have been created since the late 1960s, mainly in the USSR and the USA, of which HIPAS (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA), Sura (Vasilsursk, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia) are currently actively operating , EISCAT/Heating (Tromso, Norway), SPEAR (Svalbard, Norway), Arecibo observatory complex (Puerto Rico - one of the oldest stands, fully modernized in 2009) and HAARP itself. The latter is the most powerful, but generally similar to the rest, used for the same research tasks, namely, to study the processes occurring during artificial disturbance (heating by a powerful HF radio emission flux) of the ionosphere - one of the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere, strongly ionized by solar rays .

But if the HAARP project is not unique, why does it attract such close attention of fans of pseudoscientific hoaxes over and over again? Most likely, the fact is that most of the results obtained by HAARP are closed to the general public, which is not surprising for large-scale national projects (as opposed to international ones like EISCAT and SPEAR). Secrecy always breeds speculation, and this is further aggravated by the fact that the military is actually involved in the project: the Air Force, Navy and DARPA - the Pentagon agency engaged in advanced developments.

If climate weapons existed...

…then what could it be? What would be the requirements for it? What are the restrictions? What effect could it have?

First, let's define terminology. Climate, or, to be more precise, geophysical weapons are weapons that cause damage through the impact on the environment: all layers of the atmosphere, the hydro- and lithosphere of the Earth, the ozone layer, near-Earth space, etc. Moreover, the damage will not necessarily be instantaneous and with deadly consequences: the gradual destruction of the economy, infrastructure and communications of the enemy also fit this definition.

A hypothetical war waged with the massive use of geophysical weapons is usually called a meteorological war. Since with such a method of conducting hostilities in territories subject to aggression, significant negative changes in the living environment of animals, plants and humans are inevitable, these terms also include the concept of ecocide, that is, the complete destruction of the ecosystem and the extermination of life. In the same Vietnam War, the engineering division of Jungle Eaters worked, using Rome Plow D7E heavy bulldozers specially modified for military operations, equipped with two-ton sharpened knives. The latter were suitable both for felling trees and for removing the topsoil, which made the area unsuitable for vegetation for a long time, and, in combination with the Popeye operation, contributed to its rapid swamping. To destroy the jungle, the stronghold of the Viet Cong, in addition to bulldozers, defoliants and herbicides were also used, sprayed with the help of aircraft. All this led to a serious change in the environment.

Speaking about various forms of geophysical weapons, a number of directions can be distinguished. In particular, the impact on the lower layer of the atmosphere (weather weapon) is a well-studied area that can have very diverse manifestations. In addition to the aforementioned rains, which are forcibly shed by seeding clouds with silver iodide, there is a method for creating artificial clouds. The device used for this is called a meteotron - it pumps a strong stream of hot, water-vapor-saturated air strictly vertically, which, cooling at the top, turns into a cloud. Theoretically, during this process, cyclones can be created and used to control wind and air temperature, causing droughts and frosts. These are also hypothetical varieties of weather weapons.

Prolonged heavy rains (an atmospheric phenomenon) can be combined with another direction of the possible development of geophysical weapons - hydrospheric, that is, associated with the Earth's water shell - and cause floods and flooding of vast territories. Something similar happened in Vietnam in 1971, when the aftermath of Operation Popeye, if not caused, then at least contributed to devastating flooding. In addition to floods, hydrospheric weapons also include storms, rogue waves that pose a danger to ships on the high seas, and tsunamis. The first American attempts to cause a tsunami by artificial means were made in the mid-1940s. During the Seal project, a powerful charge was detonated on the seabed and the propagation of waves was observed. Subsequently, there were experiments with atomic bombs, up to the signing in 1963 of an agreement banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space and under water. It cannot be said that these tests were successful - the high wave that could be caused by the explosion died out after a few hundred meters.

And here we come to the third direction - tectonic weapons capable of influencing the lithosphere, the solid shell of the planet. In addition to earthquakes, this also includes volcanic eruptions, landslides and avalanches. Popular Mechanics wrote about this type of geophysical weapon in April 2010.

We have already given examples of the fourth, biospheric, direction. In addition to those mentioned earlier, there are many ways to irretrievably disrupt the ecological balance, the cycle of substances in wildlife, and any of them will be detrimental to economic activity and, as a result, to the people themselves who inhabit the affected area.

The fifth direction is the possible destructive processes associated with the layers of the Earth's air envelope located above the troposphere: the creation of temporary ozone holes that transmit the hard ultraviolet radiation of the Sun, as well as the hypothetical possibilities opened up by the ionosphere - this is exactly what the HAARP projects are exploring, " Sura" and others. These possibilities can hardly be said with certainty now, and they are hardly suitable for military applications - so far it has not been possible to cause long-term changes in the ionosphere.

Finally, another direction is based on the impact on near-Earth outer space. Imagine, for example, the bombardment of enemy territory with meteorites. Is it possible? Apparently, this is much closer to fantasy than to reality.

Finally

A climate weapon, some theoretically, some even practically, is possible, but so far there is not a single reliable fact that it is used or even exists. Here are some pros and cons.

Scientists who deny conspiracy theories about the secret use of mass climate weapons by the Americans (Russians, Chinese) give the following arguments. Firstly, even a local change in weather conditions requires huge expenditures of funds and energy, and the impact on the climate on the scale of states and regions is even more so. In addition, weather phenomena are often unpredictable due to the great variety of interacting forces, and if a simple cloud cannot always be turned into rain, then what about the control of cyclones and earthquakes. As a result, climatic weapons appear to us unpredictable, capable of inflicting damage on the attacker, his allies and neutral states instead of the enemy. Even if we assume that there is a massive climate weapon somewhere, modern weather observation tools used by developed countries are unlikely to be able to ignore the fact of its use - it will certainly be detected, and the response of the world community will be comparable to the reaction to nuclear aggression.

Thus, climate weapons most likely do not exist, and if they exist somewhere, then it is completely impractical to use them. True, in 1996, scientific experts commissioned by the US Air Force prepared a report “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Subjugation of the Weather by 2025”, which ended with a recommendation to the US government to withdraw from Convention No. most correlate with his idea of ​​common sense and the order of things.

Original taken from aboutcccp in Inhuman Experiments of the Soviet Union

Inhuman experiments of the Soviet Union

In accordance with the plan of research and experimental work…

At 09:33, an explosion of one of the most powerful nuclear bombs at that time thundered over the steppe. Following in the offensive - past the forests burning in an atomic fire, villages demolished from the face of the earth - the "eastern" troops rushed to the attack.

Aircraft, striking ground targets, crossed the stem of a nuclear mushroom. 10 km from the epicenter of the explosion in radioactive dust, among molten sand, the "Westerners" held the defense. More shells and bombs were fired that day than during the storming of Berlin.

The consequences for those participating in the operation are the exposure of 45,000 Soviet soldiers.

And although I don’t think that the Soviet Union took special care of its soldiers, no one would send them to apparent death in peacetime either. When they shout about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they forget about the monstrous consequences of the little study of the effect of radiation on humans. After five years of the Japanese tragedy, the US nuclear test is like a show where the audience brought folding chairs and took their seats in the front row.


American soldiers were in open trenches almost a kilometer from the epicenter.

In total, 8 Desert Rock exercises were conducted in the USA, 5 of them before the Totsk exercises.


Of course, this does not excuse the guilt of the Soviet command, which did not conduct its own study, as it followed on the heels of the Americans.

Now it is important to understand and realize the tragedy and mistakes of nuclear tests using living soldiers. The American government admitted its mistakes and allocated multimillion-dollar compensation to those participating in such experiments, singling them into the so-called category of "atomic" veterans and victims.

Under the compensation program were not only military personnel, but also miners and workers in the extraction and processing of uranium, as well as residents of these areas.

Uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters - $100,000;
“Onsite participants” at atmospheric nuclear weapons tests - $75,000; and
individuals who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site (“downwinders”) - $50,000.

https://www.justice.gov/civil/common/reca

What did the Soviet government do? All participants in the exercise were taken under a non-disclosure agreement for state and military secrets for a period of 25 years. Dying from early heart attacks, strokes and cancer, they could not even tell their doctors about their radiation exposure. 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.

What did the Russian government do for the victims of the Totsk experiment? Declared people disabled and assigned a disability group, erected a monument. They laid flowers at the monument.

Do you think that the Russian government has fulfilled its duty to veterans and people affected by the Totsk experiment, is that enough?


In the early 1990s, scientists from Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, and Orenburg published an "Ecological Genetic Analysis of the Long-Term Consequences of the Totsk Nuclear Explosion." The data presented in it confirmed that residents of seven districts of the Orenburg region were exposed to radiation to varying degrees. They had a progressive increase in cancer


Preparing for Operation Snowball

“Throughout the end of the summer, military echelons from all over the Union went to the small Totskoye station. None of the arrivals - even the command of military units - had any idea why they were here. Women and children met our echelon at each station. Handing us sour cream and eggs, women they lamented: “Darlings, I suppose you are going to fight in China,” says Vladimir Bentsianov, chairman of the Committee of Veterans of Special Risk Units.

In the early 1950s, serious preparations were made for a third world war. After tests conducted in the United States, the USSR also decided to test a nuclear bomb in open areas. The place of the exercises - in the Orenburg steppe - was chosen because of the 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 test site was assessed, and it was recognized as the best in terms of security,” Lieutenant General Osin recalled at one time.


Participants of the Totsk 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 were selected from us. We were given personal service weapons - modernized Kalashnikov assault rifles, ten-shot automatic rifles and R-9 radio stations,” Nikolai Pilshchikov recalls.

The campground stretched for 42 kilometers. Representatives of 212 units - 45,000 military personnel arrived at the exercises: 39,000 soldiers, sergeants and foremen, 6,000 officers, generals and marshals.

Preparations for the exercises, code-named "Snowball", lasted three months. By the end of the 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, dugouts.

On the eve of the exercises, the officers were shown a secret film about the operation of nuclear weapons. "For this, a special cinema pavilion was built, into which they were allowed only on the basis of a list and an identity card in the presence of the regiment commander and a representative of the KGB. At the same time, we heard:" You have a great honor - for the first time in the world to act in real conditions of the use of a nuclear bomb. "It became clear , for which we covered the trenches and dugouts with logs in several rolls, carefully smearing the protruding wooden parts with yellow clay. "They should not have caught fire from light radiation," Ivan Putivlsky recalled.

"Residents of the villages of Bogdanovka and Fedorovka, who were located 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 in an organized manner by the troops, they were allowed to take everything with them. The evacuated residents were paid per diem for the entire period of the exercise," - says Nikolai Pilshchikov.


"Preparation for the exercises was carried out under artillery cannonade. Hundreds of aircraft bombed the designated areas. A month before the start, a Tu-4 aircraft daily dropped a "blank" into the epicenter - a dummy bomb weighing 250 kg," Putivlsky, a participant in the exercises, recalled.

According to the memoirs of Lieutenant Colonel Danilenko, in an old oak grove surrounded by a mixed forest, a white limestone cross measuring 100x100 m was applied. The training pilots aimed at it. Deviation from the target should not exceed 500 meters. Troops were all around.

Two crews were trained: Major Kutyrchev and Captain Lyasnikov. Until the very last moment, the pilots did not know who would be the main and who would be the understudy. Kutyrchev's crew had the advantage, which already had experience in flight tests of the atomic bomb at the Semipalatinsk test site.

To prevent damage by a shock wave, troops located at a distance of 5-7.5 km from the epicenter of the explosion were ordered to be 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 monitor the exercises,” says Ivan Putivlsky. “The day before, it was painted with oil paints in green and white. stations laid an asphalt road on deep sands. The military traffic police did not let any extraneous vehicles onto this road.

"Three days before the start of the exercise, top military leaders began to arrive at the field airfield near Totsk: Marshals of the Soviet Union Vasilevsky, Rokossovsky, Konev, Malinovsky," Pilshchikov recalls. Zhu-De and Peng-Te-Huai. All of them were housed in a government town built in advance in the area of ​​the camp. A day before the exercises, Khrushchev, Bulganin and Kurchatov, the creator of nuclear weapons, 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.

Tu-4 bomber dropped a nuclear bomb from 8000 meters

On the day of departure for the exercises, both Tu-4 crews prepared in full: nuclear bombs were hung on each of the aircraft, the pilots simultaneously started the engines and reported that they were ready to complete the task. The crew of Kutyrchev received the command to take off, where the scorer was Captain Kokorin, the second pilot was Romensky, the navigator was Babets. 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 alarmed at four in the morning. It was a clear and quiet morning,” says Ivan Putivlsky. government rostrum sounded 15 minutes before the nuclear explosion: "The ice has broken!" 10 minutes before the explosion, we heard the second signal: "The ice is coming!" We, as instructed, ran out of the cars and rushed to the prepared shelters in the ravine on the side of stands. They lay down on their stomachs, with their heads in the direction of the explosion, as they were taught, with their eyes closed, putting their hands under their heads and opening their mouths. The last, third, signal sounded: "Lightning!" In the distance there was an infernal roar. The clock stopped at around 9 hours 33 minutes".

The carrier plane dropped the atomic bomb from a height of 8,000 meters on its second approach to the target. The power of the plutonium bomb under the code word "Tatyanka" was 40 kilotons of TNT - several times more than the one that was blown up 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 planned 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 attack was struck. Guns and mortars of various calibers, Katyushas, ​​self-propelled artillery mounts, and tanks dug into the ground began to speak. The battalion commander told us later that the density of fire per kilometer of area was greater than when Berlin was taken, Kazanov recalls.

“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. strike on ground targets 21-22 minutes after a nuclear explosion, crossed the stem of a nuclear mushroom - the trunk of a radioactive cloud. I and my battalion on an armored personnel carrier proceeded 600 m from the epicenter of the explosion at a speed of 16-18 km / h. I saw burned from root to top forest, crumpled columns of equipment, burnt animals". In the very epicenter - within a radius of 300 m - there was not a single hundred-year-old oak left, everything burned down ... 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, in gas masks,” recalls Kazanov. It was hard to recognize the area after the explosion: grass was smoking, scorched quails were running, shrubs and copses had disappeared. I was surrounded by bare, smoking hills. There was a solid black wall of smoke and dust, stench and burning. there was ringing and noise ... The Major General ordered me to measure the level of radiation near the burning fire 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 off from this place, which turned out to be near the immediate epicenter of the explosion ... "

Two days later - on September 17, 1954 - a TASS message was printed in the Pravda newspaper: "In accordance with the plan of research and experimental work, one of the types of atomic weapons was tested in the Soviet Union in recent days. The purpose of the test was to study the effect atomic explosion. Valuable results were obtained during the test, which 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 to the old - inhabited and already infected - places by logs, collected radioactive grain, potatoes baked in the ground in the fields ... And for a long time the old residents of Bogdanovka, Fedorovka and the village of Sorochinsky remembered strange glow of firewood. The woodpile, made of trees charred in the area of ​​the explosion, glowed in the dark with a greenish fire.

Mice, rats, rabbits, sheep, cows, horses and even insects that had been in the "zone" were subjected to close examination... a day of training with dry rations wrapped in almost a two-centimeter layer of rubber ... He was immediately taken for research. The next day, all soldiers and officers were transferred to a normal diet. Delicacies disappeared. "

They were returning from the Totsk training ground, according to the memoirs of Stanislav Ivanovich Kazanov, they were not in the freight train in which they arrived, but in a normal passenger car. Moreover, their composition was passed without the slightest delay. Stations flew by: an empty platform on which a lone stationmaster stood and saluted. The reason was simple. In the same train, in a special car, Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was returning from the exercises.

“In Moscow, at the Kazan station, the marshal was waiting for a magnificent meeting,” Kazanov recalls. “Our cadets of the sergeant school did not receive any insignia, special certificates, or awards ... The gratitude that the Minister of Defense Bulganin announced to us, we also did not receive anywhere later ".

The pilots who dropped the nuclear bomb were each awarded a Pobeda brand car for the successful completion of this mission. At the analysis of the exercises, the crew commander Vasily Kutyrchev received the Order of Lenin from the hands of Bulganin and, ahead of schedule, the rank of colonel.

The results of combined arms exercises with the use of nuclear weapons were labeled "top secret."

The third generation of people who survived the tests at the Totsk test site lives with a predisposition to cancer

For reasons of secrecy, no checks and examinations of the participants in this inhuman experiment were carried out. Everything was hidden and hushed up. Civilian casualties are still unknown. Archives of the Totsk Regional Hospital from 1954 to 1980. destroyed.

“In the Sorochinsky registry office, we made a sample according to the diagnoses of people who died over the past 50 years. Since 1952, 3,209 people have died from oncology in nearby villages. Immediately after the explosion, there were only two deaths. And then two peaks: one 5-7 years after explosion, the second - from the beginning of the 90s.

We also studied immunology in children: we took the grandchildren of people who survived the explosion. The results stunned us: there are practically no natural killers in the immunograms of Sorochinsk children, which are involved in anti-cancer protection. In children, the interferon system - the body's defense against cancer - does not actually work. It turns out that the third generation of people who survived the atomic explosion lives with a predisposition to cancer," says Mikhail Skachkov, professor at the Orenburg Medical Academy.

The participants of the Totsk exercises were not given any documents, they appeared only in 1990, when they were equated in rights with Chernobyl victims.

Of the 45 thousand soldiers who took part in the Totsk exercises, a little more than 2 thousand are now alive. Half of them are officially recognized as invalids 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, and 4.5% have malignant neoplasms. and blood diseases.

A conditional term adopted in a number of countries, denoting a set of various means that make it possible to use the destructive forces of inanimate nature for military purposes by artificially induced changes in the physical properties and processes occurring in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere of the Earth.

In the United States and a number of other countries, attempts are being made to study the possibility of influencing the ionosphere by causing artificial magnetic storms and auroras that disrupt radio communications and prevent radar observations over a wide area. The possibility of a large-scale change in temperature is being studied by spraying substances that absorb solar radiation, reducing the amount of precipitation, calculated on unfavorable weather changes for the enemy (for example, drought). Destruction of the ozone layer in the atmosphere can presumably make it possible to direct the destructive action of cosmic rays and solar ultraviolet radiation into areas occupied by the enemy.

The term "geophysical weapon" reflects, in essence, one of the combat properties of nuclear weapons - influencing geophysical processes in the direction of initiating their dangerous consequences for the troops and the population. In other words, the damaging (destructive) factors of geophysical weapons are natural phenomena, and the role of their purposeful initiation is performed mainly by nuclear weapons.

Geophysical weapons can also include means capable of causing such changes in the properties and processes occurring in the solid, liquid and gaseous shell of the Earth, which lead to the impact on the population by the destructive forces of inanimate nature.

Weather weapon

It was used during the Vietnam War in the form of seeding supercooled clouds with silver iodide microcrystals. The purpose of this type of weapon is to purposefully influence the weather in order to reduce the enemy’s ability to meet his needs for food and other types of agricultural products.

climate weapon

It is a means of influencing the local or global climate of the planet for military purposes and is intended for long-term changes in the characteristic weather patterns in certain territories. Even minor climate changes can seriously affect the economy and living conditions of entire regions - a decrease in the yield of the most important agricultural crops, a sharp increase in the incidence of the population.

At present, methods (by conducting underground explosions) of artificial initiation of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunami waves, avalanches, mudflows, landslides, and other natural disasters that can lead to massive losses among the population have been theoretically substantiated. From a military point of view, ozone weapons are effective. Its use leads to the depletion of the ozone layer and increases the intensity of ultraviolet irradiation of the Earth's surface. This causes an increase in the incidence of skin cancer, snow blindness, and reduces crop yields.

Radiological weapons

One of the possible types of weapons of mass destruction, the action of which is based on the use of military radioactive substances. Under military radioactive substances understand substances specially obtained and prepared in the form of powders or solutions, containing in their composition radioactive isotopes of chemical elements with ionizing radiation.

The action of radiological weapons can be compared with the action of radioactive substances that are formed during a nuclear explosion and pollute the surrounding area. As a result of intense and long-term radiation, military radioactive substances can cause devastating consequences for the animal and plant world.

The main source of military radioactive substances are waste generated during the operation of nuclear reactors. They can also be obtained by irradiating pre-prepared substances in nuclear reactors and munitions. The rapid development of nuclear energy in recent years and the achievements of high-energy physics have made it possible for developed countries to obtain radioactive substances with different half-lives in such quantities that, according to military experts, they will make it possible to widely use radiological weapons in future wars and create pollution for the required period.

The use of military radioactive substances can be carried out with the help of aerial bombs, aerial spray devices, unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles and other ammunition and combat devices.

Research by Western experts on the development of new types of chemical warfare agents that temporarily incapacitate is aimed at studying psychotropic peptides, depressants and stimulants that cannot be indicated by existing chemical reconnaissance devices, and so far have no means of protection.

When used for military purposes, genetic engineering poses a significant danger, with its ability to create many previously unknown biological agents that cause damage to the human body.

Most of the listed weapons were combined into a new group of means of armed struggle, called "weapons of non-lethal action", which are supposed to be used to destroy people, equipment and the environment. The possibility of using non-lethal weapons by terrorist methods should not be discounted.

The medical consequences of the use of these new promising types of weapons cannot currently be quantified, but the possibility of their use and the nature of the consequences must be taken into account when planning measures for the medical protection of the population in wartime. Under these conditions, the tasks of developing and implementing means and methods of protection against weapons with non-traditional damaging factors become relevant.

NUCLEAR WEAPON

Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction of explosive action, based on the use of the energy of fission of heavy nuclei of some isotopes of uranium or plutonium, or in thermonuclear reactions - the synthesis of light nuclei of hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium into heavier nuclei, for example, nuclei of helium isotopes.

Warheads of missiles and torpedoes, aviation and depth charges, artillery shells and mines can be supplied with nuclear warheads. By power, ultra-small nuclear charges (less than 1 kT), small (1-10 kT), medium (10-100 kT), large (100-1000 kT), extra-large (more than 1000 kT) nuclear charges are distinguished. Depending on the tasks to be solved, it is possible to use nuclear weapons in the form of underground, ground, air, underwater and surface explosions. Features of the damaging effect of nuclear weapons on the population is determined not only by the power of the ammunition and the type of explosion, but also by the type of nuclear device. Depending on the charge, nuclear weapons, thermonuclear weapons, combined charges and neutron weapons are distinguished.

In a nuclear explosion, specific damaging factors can affect the human body: shock wave, light radiation, penetrating radiation, radioactive contamination of the area. An air shock wave causes damage to people both as a result of direct impact and indirectly, due to the traumatic effect of flying objects. The damaging effect of a light pulse is based on thermal burns of the skin and organs of vision. Burns of the organs of vision can lead to blindness of the affected. Thermal damage can be caused both directly by the light pulse of a nuclear explosion, and by a flame during the ignition of clothing and fires that have arisen in the hearth.

Ionizing radiation is an important component of nuclear explosions. They consist of a stream of neutrons and gamma radiation. Less important are beta particles and alpha particles. The great penetrating power of primary radiation, combined with the high biological activity of neutrons and gamma rays, makes them one of the main damaging factors in a nuclear explosion.

As a result of the deposition of particles from the radioactive cloud of a land or underwater explosion on the earth's surface in the form of radioactive fallout, there is a danger of residual radiation. Radioactive fallout is divided into two types: early (local) and late (global). Early precipitation falls to the earth's surface within 24 hours of the explosion. Global precipitation falls for a long time on the surface of the entire globe.

The primary effect of radiation is realized in physical, physicochemical and chemical processes with the formation of chemically active free radicals (H + , OH - , HO 2), which have high oxidizing and reducing properties. Subsequently, various peroxide compounds are formed that inhibit the activity of some enzymes and increase the activity of others, playing an important role in the process of autolysis (self-dissolution) of tissues. The appearance in the blood of decay products of radiosensitive tissues and pathological metabolism when exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation is the basis for the formation of toxemia - poisoning of the body associated with the circulation of toxins in the blood. Of primary importance is the violation of the physiological regeneration of cells and tissues and the change in the functions of the regulatory system.

An electromagnetic pulse causes damage to power supply lines, electronic and electrical equipment, and can cause damage to the population and civil defense forces.

In case of combined damage to the population, traumatic injuries can be combined with burns, radiation sickness and radioactive contamination of the area. With the simultaneous action of various damaging factors of a nuclear explosion, combined lesions occur, which are characterized by the development of a syndrome of mutual aggravation, which worsens the prospects for recovery. The nature of the combined damage depends on the power and type of nuclear explosion. For example, even with an explosion of 10 kT, the damage radius of the shock wave and light radiation exceeds the damage radius from penetrating radiation, which will affect the structure of sanitary losses.

In explosions of low and medium power, combinations of traumatic injuries, burns, and radiation sickness are expected, while in explosions of high power, combinations of injuries and burns are expected. Based on a study of the patterns of sanitary losses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is estimated that 70% were mechanical damage, 65-85% were thermal burns, and 30% were radiation injuries. In 39-42% of all cases there were combined lesions.

Acute radiation sickness develops with external gamma and gamma neutron irradiation at a dose exceeding 1 Gy, received at one time or in a short period of time (from 3 to 10 days), as well as when radionuclides are ingested, creating an adequate absorbed dose.

Depending on the dose, various manifestations of the form of acute radiation sickness develop.