TASS FACTBOX. On October 30, 2025, US President Donald Trump announced that he had instructed the Department of War to begin nuclear weapons testing because "other countries are doing the same," without specifying which countries he was referring to. TASS FACTBOX editors have compiled a nuclear testing history digest.
Nuclear (or atomic) weapons (NW) are explosive weapons based on the uncontrolled fission chain reaction of heavy nuclei and thermonuclear fusion reactions. These weapons use either uranium-235, plutonium-239, or, in some cases, uranium-233 isotopes. They are classified as weapons of mass destruction, along with biological and chemical weapons. The yield of a nuclear device is measured in the TNT equivalent, usually expressed in kilotons (kt) and megatons (mt).
The world's first nuclear bomb was created in the United States under the Manhattan Project, which involved more than 130,000 people, including scientists from Britain, Canada, and Germany. The first test (called Operation Trinity) was conducted on July 16 at a test site 100 km away from Alamogordo, New Mexico. A plutonium bomb, codenamed Gadget, was exploded. The explosive force was approximately 20 kt. Less than a month later, on August 6 and 9, the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than 250,000 people died instantly. The overall death toll from the blasts and its aftereffects was almost half a million (in October 2025, US President Donald Trump called the bombings a "minor conflict" in US-Japan relations). Since then, nuclear weapons have not been used for combat purposes.
