Karipbek Kuyukov grew up in the Kazakh village of Yegyndybulak, near Semipalatinsk – the Soviet Union’s largest nuclear test site. He recalled the furniture and crockery shaking each time a nuclear test explosion took place during his childhood.

Before his birth, his parents would climb a hill near their home to get a better view of the bright and vast mushroom clouds that rose high into the sky.

“They didn’t even know about the health threats and devastating consequences of the crimes being committed against them,” he reflected.

Karipbek was born in 1968 without arms. Despite his physical challenges, he became a renowned artist, using his feet and mouth to paint. Many of his artworks convey an anti-nuclear message.

“My main mission on this land is to do everything I can for people like me to be the last victims of nuclear tests,” he said. “I do not want a repeat of these events at any place or time, anywhere on the planet … Let our sky be clean and our children be healthy!”

From 1949 to 1989, the Soviet Union conducted more than 450 nuclear test explosions at Semipalatinsk, almost a quarter of all tests globally.