'Let us be a lesson', say Kazakhs wary of return to nuclear testing

A view shows abandoned buildings in the Chagan military town near the former Semipalatinsk Test Site, one of the main locations for nuclear testing in the Soviet Union, in the Abai Region, Kazakhstan November 7, 2023. REUTERS/Pavel Mikheyev

SARYZHAL, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - As Russia warns of the rising risk of nuclear war, and relations with the United States sink into a deep freeze, communities close to the vast Soviet-era nuclear testing site in northern Kazakhstan have a message for leaders: "Let us be a lesson."

Hundreds of tests were carried out between 1949 and 1989 on the barren steppe near the city of Semey, formerly known as Semipalatinsk, close to the Kazakh-Russian border. The effect of radiation had a devastating impact on the environment and local people's health, and continues to affect lives there today.