Putin Sees ‘Light at the End of the Tunnel’ in U.S.-Russia Relations

Aug. 25—Speaking with employees of Rosatom in the atomic city of Sarov Aug. 23, President Vladimir Putin put out a number of important messages. He referred to the two major projects during Soviet times, missiles and the atomic project. This year Russia celebrates the 80th anniversary of the creation of a Soviet atomic agency on August 20, 1945, a decision taken less than two weeks after the bombing of Hiroshima. Without those projects, Putin underlined, the Soviet Union would have been defenseless against the new weapon. The importance of maintaining “sovereignty” was absolutely essential for a country like Russia. He also noted that most of the European countries have basically lost their sovereignty.

Putin also laid flowers at the grave of Yuri Khariton, one of the key developers of the nuclear project together with Igor Kurchatov, who had single-handedly in 1956 declassified the Soviet work on fusion, realizing that the hydrogen bomb, after having witnessed a test of its third variant, was a weapon that could never be used in a war. The Rosatom employees were very young, most of them under 30 years old. One young lady in uniform, who raised a question about the nuclear program, was second mate on a nuclear icebreaker, which surprised the President, who, seeing the uniform, thought she might be a student at one of the military institutes.

Many of the employees seemed to have come from families who already worked in the nuclear industry. One rather thin, middle-aged woman, said she had dreams as a child of becoming a ballerina, but her father worked in the nuclear field and her grandfather had helped deal with the Chernobyl accident, and she decided to work in the nuclear field, now designing nuclear reactors.

The young employees also had a clear grasp of the history of their nuclear program, with the names of Khariton, Zeldovich, and other well-known figures, like stars for them. One woman noted how Kurchatov “had taught us that the atom should be a worker, not a soldier,” referring to Kurchatov’s shift away from weapons production to atomic energy, building the world’s first nuclear power plant in 1954.

Putin also indicated the importance of the nuclear industry for the nation. There are almost a half-million people employed by Rosatom, the nuclear industry playing something like the auto industry played for the U.S. economy in the 1950s. Rosatom has also been put in charge of the Northern Sea Route and the Arctic development project.

When asked about international cooperation, Putin underlined that international cooperation in science was still strong in spite of the attempt to isolate Russia, and includes Americans who continue to work with Russia on the projects. He also referred to the extensive work Rosatom is doing in building nuclear plants abroad. He stressed the importance of the international scientific community, that “community of smart people” which has “never been totally destroyed and will never be destroyed.” With regard to the United States, he said that with Trump, there was “light at the end of the tunnel.” He remarked on the willingness of the U.S. to cooperate in joint projects in the Arctic, “even in Alaska.” He did not clarify further what these projects might entail.