Soviet atomic bomb

Soviet atomic bomb project
Russian physicists Andrei Sakharov (left) with Igor Kurchatov who led the program to the success.
Operational scope	Operational R&D
Location	Atomgrad, Semipalatinsk, Chagan Lake
Planned by	NKVD, NKGB GRU, MGB, PGU
Date	1943–49
Executed by	Soviet Union
Outcome	The successful completion towards the feasibility of the nuclear weapon.

The Soviet atomic bomb project (Russian: Советский проект атомной бомбы) was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to developed the feasibility of nuclear weapons during World War II.

The program was initiated in response to the intelligence reports collected by Soviet intelligence through their spy ring in the United States on the secretive Manhattan Project. Despite it having remained largely an intelligence effort until the end of the war, the program was highly successful, thanks to the management of the Russian' intelligence agencies benefitted by the spy ring conducting espionage in the United States.

Because of the conspicuous silence of the scientific publications on the subject of fission by German, American, and British scientists, Russian physicist, Georgy Flyorov suspected that the Allied powers had secretly been developing a "superweapon" since 1939. Flyorov wrote a letter to Stalin urging him to start this program in 1942. Initial efforts were slowed due to the German invasion of the Soviet Union and remained largely composed of the intelligence knowledge gained from the spy rings working in the U.S.' Manhattan Project in 1943.