How did the USSR get its nukes? (Short Animated Documentary)

The USSR was famously the second nation ever to build nuclear weapons, when it successfully detonated one in 1949. However, given the destruction that it had suffered in World War 2, how exactly did it do this? To find out watch this short and simple animated history documentary.

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[bagelmaster]

Slight correction: Plutonium wasn't mined in the Urals, as plutonium does not occur in nature in quantities feasible to collect. It's synthesized from Uranium. The project in the Urals was a nuclear reactor for this purpose.

[douglasboyle]

One minor correction, the Soviets didn't mine plutonium as it's only in the Earth's crust in trace amounts. The issue was they couldn't enrich their uranium to weapons grade (an expensive and difficult process), so they converted it to plutonium in breeder reactors instead.

[LordMerji]

James and Kelly could have easily funded their own nuke program.

[Fernandinioo]

My Great Grandfather (Manfred von Ardenne) himself was one of the leading scientist contributing to the Soviet Atomic Bomb Project. As he was German he was taken after the war by the Soviets under Beria and he was one of the leading scientist stationed and isolated in today Georgia working to enrich the Uranium, completely cut of of the world with many other German scientists. He was working there until the completion of the hydrogen bomb, where he was awarded the Stalin prize first grade, as well as allowed to return to East Germany. Therefore, I really have to say this video is just great portraying all the different compositions of the project in just 3 minutes. A+ from me.

[JarrodFrates]

The USSR discovered uranium ore during the war and used that to eventually create plutonium, which is not a naturally occurring element in any useful amount. They had uranium ore mines by 1942, starting with a mine in Taboshar (now Istiqlol), Tajikistan, and adding several more sites over the ensuing years. They developed plutonium from that by bombarding U-238 with neutrons to form U-239, which decays to Np-239, which then decays to Pu-239, then using various processes to isolate the plutonium, just as the US did.

[Mtn_Dewit]

Great video, as always. Here's a video idea. How did India and Pakistan get their nukes?

[jbrothman]

You can't mine plutonium, it's made (at scale) in a reactor from uranium.

[marvinellis]

Mistakes = a purging. Might be the best single frame in your fantastic collection. Thank you History Matters

[PfcDupuis]

I'm a long time subscriber, I really do miss your 10min history, any chance you bring them back every so often?

[Maike_I.F]

What an unespected series, with four episodes by now, and I'm loving it.

[comicus]

I liked both the "Stalinized" erasing from the photograph, and the running through the field of proliferation flowers. Lots of great humor as always.

[XelitexX]

So far we had how China, USSR, France & Britain got its nukes. As someone below mentioned, I do hope we eventually get a video about India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. Really interesting topics!

[patrickhaeusler]

Since you've already covered why Ethiopia did (almost) not get colonized, it might be interesting to talk about Siam/Thailand as well. I've heard it was seen as a buffer state between British India/British Malaya and French Indochina, but since that didn't save other non-western nations from being split up as well and the colonial possessions weren't even completely prevented from bordering each other, I assume there's been some other reasons as well.

[WaterDrinkingHydroDragon]

Part of the reason why I love this channel, aside from how informative and easy to grasp it is, are the terms for death such as "his predecessor had been thoroughly stalined" xD

[JA]

Now we just need a “How the US got nukes” video and that’ll be the first 5 on this channel

[thomaswinters]

"Oh Wait"

I actually laughed out loud at a history video. Never change man. :D

[Heath]

It's really wild how the Soviets had elite sympathizers in basically every country, especially Britian

[pridelander]

"At which point minds became much more focused"
*Stalin running around on fire*

I love this channel so much.

[Merennulli]

The notion of them settling for plutonium instead of uranium is pretty funny. I know others already explained plutonium isn't something you can meaningfully mine, but I felt it was worth adding - the US used both. Little Boy, used on Hiroshima, was uranium, while Fat Man, used on Nagasaki was plutonium. The Trinity test was also plutonium.

[dfv]

I think anyone that knows anything about Beiria can agree that that man having any kind of influence over the use of nuclear weapons is beyond terrifying.