Project PERUN was the codename for a top-secret Soviet weapons program established in 1932 on the direct orders of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, acting under the authority of Leon Trotsky. Conceived as the Soviet Union’s answer to German advances in military science and technology, the project was given its own restricted zone, Semipalatinsk-21, located within the borders of The Confederation of Konratopia, a close Soviet ally.
In 1932, Tukhachevsky secured approval to concentrate the Soviet Union’s most ambitious military-industrial initiatives under a single umbrella project. Construction of Semipalatinsk-21 began immediately, with its first industrial and scientific installations completed by mid-1933. This site became the beating heart of Soviet experimentation in chemical, biological, nuclear, and advanced propulsion technologies.
Project PERUN’s first breakthroughs came in 1934:
- Chlorine Trifluoride (ClF3): An exceptionally volatile and corrosive chemical agent, whose destructive potential prompted immediate mass production. It was first employed in 1939 by the French to destroy German fortifications protecting Alsace, but further use would be very limited due to the threat of Allied retaliation with conventional chemical weapons, at least until the Yellow Winter of 1945.
- Reactive Propulsion Laboratory: Founded under Sergei Korolev, granting the USSR technological parity with Germany in rocket science and laying the foundation for the later Soviet space program.
- The Red Plague: A weaponised strain of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), engineered to be easier to cultivate, more virulent, and deadlier than its natural counterpart. It would be held back from use until the Yellow Winter of 1945.
- Proximity Fuzes: Experimental electronic fuzes were trialled in late 1934, reserved exclusively for defending Soviet industrial centres until late in the war, in order to preserve secrecy.
By 1935, Semipalatinsk-21 had grown into a multidisciplinary hub of military science with the addition of two more main laboratories:
- Lebedev’s Electromechanics Laboratory began work on the MESM computing project, completed shortly before the war’s end.
- Lyulka’s Aeronautical Propulsion Laboratory pioneered early jet propulsion systems, which would grant the Soviets a critical advantage in air power during the Great Patriotic War.
In 1937, Igor Kurchatov secured approval for the Soviet Atomic Program. While initial progress lagged behind that of the German Empire's Uranprojekt and later the United States' Manhattan Project, Kurchatov’s laboratory succeeded in producing the first fusion-based nuclear bombs (using the Sakharov “layer-cake” design) by 1945, allowing the Soviets to reach nuclear parity against the much more numerous but less advanced Allied fission arsenal. Sakharov's bombs were used during the Yellow Winter of 1945.
With the formal end of hostilities in February 1946 and the signing of the Second Treaty of Versailles, Project PERUN was officially dissolved. Yet Semipalatinsk-21 continues as a permanent Soviet testing ground and research facility, developing advanced weaponry and strategic technologies to gain an edge in the ongoing Cold War.