Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and the Republic of Kazakhstan undertook a secret joint operation, now known as Project Sapphire, to secure large quantities of weapons-grade uranium and stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Key participants reflect on this successful effort and commemorate decades of partnership at this event.

Kazakhstan’s leadership on nuclear and biological risk reduction for the last 30 years serves as a core model for regional and international security. Please join us for a moderated discussion on the history of this work and Kazakhstan’s increasingly global role in the changing WMD threat landscape.

The United States is sending anti-tank rounds containing depleted uranium to Ukraine.

The private sector, governments, and international bodies can counter illicit proliferators’ exploitation of the international financial system in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

What kind of country would Kazakhstan or Ukraine be if, back then, they had tried to push their way into the nuclear club?

The nuclear testing component left a devastating legacy in Kazakhstan because for 40 years the military tested nuclear weapons, both in the atmosphere and later underground.

What is happening in Ukraine is not a fluke but rather a pattern of the long-term experience that former Soviet republics lived through. It is a pattern of disrespect.

Above all, what made this unique and sensitive operation possible was the fundamental trust between the governments of Kazakhstan and the United States. With only a couple of years’ worth of diplomatic relations, the two countries dealt with serious political, technical, security, and logistical challenges.

The untold true story of how the obscure country of Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history.

Kazakhstan stands as an important case study of nuclear reversal. Yet most accounts of this case merely highlight the return of the nuclear weapons left on Kazakh territory to Russia. Left out are the human dimensions of this story. In Atomic Steppe,Toghzan Kassenova artfully weaves together first-hand accounts and archival data into a rich accounting of a tumultuous period.