The monograph is devoted to the initial period of development of nuclear weapons by the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union. It shows the organization, preparation and objective need for a military exercise on the territory of the Thin Training and Artillery Range of the South Ural Military District in 1954 with the real use of an atomic bomb. The military-political situation after the end of World War II was also reflected, when the USSR and the USA turned from allies into nuclear-armed opponents and entered a phase of confrontation called the Cold War. The reality is that thanks to nuclear weapons, the two superpowers maintained peace in the USSR and then in Russia for more than half of the 20th century. This was facilitated by the testing of nuclear weapons and the ongoing exercises of troops with these weapons.