Oleg Alexandrovich Lavrentiev (; in Pskov, Russia – in Kharkiv in Ukraine) was a Soviet Russian and later Ukrainian physicist in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons whose research contributions were fundamental to understanding of thermonuclear fusion. Biography Lavrentiev was born in Pskov, into a family descended from peasants. His father, Alexander, completed 2 years at a parochial school, worked as a clerk at a Pskov factory, his mother, Alexandra, completed 4 years, and worked as a nurse. During the war, at age 18 he volunteered for the front. He participated in the battles for the Baltic States (1944–1945), transferred to the Sakhalin Military District, and continued military service in Poronaisk. He was a self-taught physicist who once allowed to attend the Moscow State University but did not secure graduation from there. Eventually, the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology awarded him the doctorate in 2004. The hydrogen bomb and controlled fusion While in grade 7 (in 1941) upon reading "Introduction to Nuclear Physics", he showed interest in this topic. While in the military on Sakhalin Lavrentiev educated himself, using the library of technical literature and college textbooks. With his measly military allowance he subscribed to the journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk. (Advances in Physical Science) In 1948, Lavrentiev was instructed to prepare a lecture on nuclear physics. With a few days to prepare, he had time to rethink the problem and wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). From Moscow came an order to create for him an atmosphere where he could work. In a guarded room dedicated to him, he wrote his first article, which he sent in July 1950 via secret mail to the department of heavy equipment engineering of the Central Committee. His proposal consisted of two parts. Firstly, he proposed an implementation of a hydrogen bomb, based on lithium deuteride. In the second part of his work, he describes how to obtain electricity from a controlled thermonuclear reaction. Andrei Sakharov reviewed his work and wrote in a review the following: In 1950 Lavrentiev was demobilized from the army and came to Moscow, where he entered the Physics Department of Moscow State University. A few months later he was summoned to the Minister of the measuring instrument (the nuclear industry) V.A. Makhnev, and a few days later - to the Kremlin to the chairman of an ad hoc committee on atomic and