Published on: 2026-08-31
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
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Evgenia Klescheva
August 31, 2026 Peace and Security
He was born without arms – such is the legacy of four decades of nuclear explosions at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. On Monday, artist and anti-nuclear activist Karipbek Kuyukov walked through the corridors of the United Nations headquarters in New York alongside diplomats, scientists, and survivors of the tests’ aftermath. His message remains constant: no one should ever again have to endure what his generation faced.
Kuyukov paints pictures holding the brush with his lips and toes. He became one of the participants in the symbolic march before the UN General Assembly session on the occasion of the International Day of Action Against Nuclear Tests. It ended at a large photograph displayed in the General Assembly building: the photo shows people demanding the closure of the Semipalatinsk test site.
“I would first of all like to tell our story, the story of Kazakhstan,” Kuyukov told the UN News Service.
UN News Service Karipbek Kuyukov, artist and activist from Kazakhstan, by the photograph of protesters demanding the closure of the Semipalatinsk testing site.
From 1949 to 1989, 456 nuclear tests were conducted at the Semipalatinsk test site. Hundreds of thousands of people living nearby were exposed to elevated doses of radiation, and the effects of exposure are passed down through families from generation to generation.
“My parents were living witnesses of these trials. And as a result of this, I was born without arms,” the artist said.
“The whole nation has risen”
Kuyukov was 20 years old when the poet Olzhas Suleimenov headed the anti-nuclear movement “Nevada-Semipalatinsk.”
“The entire nation rose up against this monster, against the Semipalatinsk test site,” recalls the activist.
According to him, the movement has extended far beyond Kazakhstan. Kuyukov remembers standing at a rally shoulder to shoulder with the leader of the Shoshone tribe, whose lands are located near the American test site in Nevada, and how activists from French Polynesia, where France conducted tests on the Mururoa atoll, and from Japan participated in peaceful actions at the gates of the Semipalatinsk test site.
Photo by ODVAZI Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan, where the USSR conducted nuclear weapons testing.
On August 29, 1991, the Semipalatinsk test site was closed. Later, at Kazakhstan’s initiative, the General Assembly proclaimed this date as the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the closure of the test site. Kuyukov noted that it was this peaceful decision – the renunciation of nuclear weapons – that marked the beginning of his country’s path to sovereignty.
“I believe that this is a great honor for us and that this decision can serve as a worthy example for other countries,” he emphasized.
Every step matters
Addressing the participants of the march, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, stated that the silence that fell over Semipalatinsk 35 years ago “did not come by itself.”
“It was achieved thanks to the determination of people, communities, and leaders who rejected nuclear testing,” Nakamitsu said.
UN OCHA Participants of the symbolic march on the occasion of the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
Kazakhstan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Kairat Umarov, called the march “a very simple but very effective reminder that every step towards disarmament matters.”
This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO, addressing the young participants in the march, called disarmament “a path that people walk from generation to generation.”
“The day will come when your generation will take the lead, make decisions, sit on boards of directors and in assembly halls,” Floyd said. “And we will welcome your big steps forward.”
Prevent the nuclear threat
Speaking later in the General Assembly hall, Nakamitzu warned that against the backdrop of deep geopolitical tensions, concerns about the possible resumption of nuclear tests have again been raised. She recalled the words of the UN Secretary-General: “The world must never again witness a nuclear explosion.”
Since 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions have been conducted on the planet, but in the three decades since the entry into force of the CTBT, fewer than a dozen have been signed. Today, the document has been signed by 188 states; after Tonga’s ratification last month, the number of countries having ratified it reached 179. The treaty has not yet entered into force.
UN OCHA Participants of the symbolic march on the occasion of the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
The President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, noted in her speech that the consequences of the explosions know no borders.
“In a interconnected world like ours, there are no truly ‘remote areas’ protected from the consequences and dangers of nuclear testing,” she said.
Tina Cordova, a representative of the fourth generation of those affected by “Trinity,” the first nuclear test in history, conducted in 1945 in the American state of New Mexico, also spoke at the meeting.
“We became the first people in the world exposed to radiation when ashes fell from the sky in the first days after the explosion,” she said, recounting five generations of cancer in her own family.
“I am here to speak on behalf of many people who were forced into silence – for those who cry out from the graves,” Cordova said, addressing the delegates.
“After 81 years, it is time to free our families, our children, and grandchildren from the nuclear threat,” the activist urged.
The Case of the Young
For Kuyukov, the fight today is above all about supporting future generations. When he sees young people joining movements against nuclear weapons, he invariably reminds them that in war, innocent children suffer first.
“The future is in their hands,” the artist is convinced. “We have experience. We can share this experience with the youth.”
When asked what he would say to world leaders in the current troubling situation, the activist responded with a call for reconciliation—for the sake of a new world where kindness, mercy, and compassion prevail.
“We need to forget offenses, some past mistakes and leave them in the past history,” Kuikov concluded. “Now we must move forward only together.”
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