Sakharov, Andrei Dmitrievich

Soviet physicist. He was an outspoken human-rights campaigner, who with Igor Tamm developed the hydrogen bomb. He later protested against Soviet nuclear tests and was a founder of the Soviet Human Rights Committee in 1970. In 1975 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his advocacy of human rights and disarmament. For criticizing Soviet action in Afghanistan, he was sent into internal exile 1980–86.

Sakharov was elected to the Congress of the USSR People's Deputies in 1989, where he emerged as leader of its radical reform grouping before his death later the same year.