Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his top officials to draft proposals for a potential nuclear weapons test, a step not taken by Moscow since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
Defence Minister Andrei Belousov informed Putin that recent US remarks and actions made it “advisable to prepare for full-scale nuclear tests” immediately.
Belousov added that Russia’s Arctic testing site at Novaya Zemlya could host such tests at short notice.
Putin said: “I am instructing the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry… the special services and relevant civilian agencies to do everything possible to collect additional information on the issue, analyse it at the Security Council and make agreed proposals on the possible start of work on the preparation of nuclear weapons tests.”
No country apart from North Korea – most recently in 2017 – has carried out explosive tests of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.
Security analysts say a resumption of testing would be destabilising at a time of acute geopolitical tension.
If any one country carries out such a test, analysts say the others are likely to follow suit.
“Action-reaction cycle at its best. No one needs this, but we might get there regardless,” Andrey Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, posted on X after the comments by Belousov.
The United States last tested in 1992, China and France in 1996 and the Soviet Union in 1990.
Post-Soviet Russia, which inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal, has never done so.
Trump said in a surprise announcement last week: “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”
Trump has yet to clarify whether he was referring to nuclear-explosive testing, which would be carried out by the National Nuclear Security Administration, or flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles.
Russia last month tested its new Burevestnik cruise missile, which is nuclear-powered and designed to carry a nuclear warhead.
It also held nuclear launch drills and tested a nuclear-powered Poseidon super-torpedo.
Testing delivery systems for nuclear weapons does not involve a nuclear explosion.
Such blasts were regularly staged by the nuclear powers for decades during the Cold War, with devastating environmental consequences that campaigners fear could be unleashed once again if explosive tests resume.
