Nuclearizing Ukraine – Ukrainizing the Atom

Soviet nuclear technology, as a socio‑technical system, was an imperial technology. It was regarded as a cornerstone in “large technological system”‑based integration projects within and beyond the Soviet Union. Soviet Ukraine played an important role in this endeavor, and nuclearizing the republic stabilized its status as secunda inter pares in ruling the Soviet Union. Nuclearization was also aligned with Kyiiv’s resource distribution interests. Soviet Ukraine’s nuclear capacities, moreover, were designed to establish a powerful link with other Socialist countries and their electricity systems. The emergence of large nuclear power plants in former non‑industrialized rural regions of Ukraine served the purposes of Soviet internal colonization and infrastructure development. It brought thousands of Russian‑speaking experts to Ukrainian lands which two decades earlier had still been considered unsafe peripheries. But regional recruitment to the Ukrainian NPP also produced a novel class of Ukrainophone nuclear specialists and skilled workers, thus adding a new chapter to the history of Ukrainian social mobilization in the post‑WWII period. At the same time, it was on the Ukrainian periphery that Soviet Atoms for Peace experienced severe crises but also showed resilience and preparedness for problem‑solving. This article revises traditional narratives on nuclear power in Ukraine, which are often reduced to the experience of Russian domination, the Chernobyl disaster, victimhood, and post‑Soviet disintegration, discussing neither Ukrainian agency in the overall history of Soviet nuclear technology nor the role of resilience and transformation. The traditionalist view is supported by both Ukrainian victimizing narratives and Russian centrist concepts of Soviet nuclear power as a genuine Russian project. Evidence from the periphery challenges both of these lines of thinking.