A senior Russian diplomat has stated that Moscow is continuously evaluating the possibility of resuming nuclear weapons tests, in response to what he called “hostile” US policies.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, told TASS news agency on Saturday that the issue of nuclear tests is still under active consideration. “This is a question at hand,” he remarked when asked whether Moscow was contemplating a return to nuclear testing. “And without making any predictions, I can say that the situation is quite difficult. It is constantly being considered in all its components and in all its aspects.”
In September, Ryabkov had referred to comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had stated that Russia would refrain from conducting nuclear tests as long as the United States also did not carry out any tests. Russia has not conducted a nuclear test since 1990, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
However, earlier this month, Putin announced changes to Russia’s nuclear policy, lowering the threshold for potential nuclear retaliation. The decision was a response to what Moscow perceives as an escalation by Western nations supporting Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia. Under the revised policy, Russia could consider a nuclear strike if faced with a conventional attack on its territory or that of its ally Belarus, especially if it posed a critical threat to their sovereignty or territorial integrity.
These adjustments to Russia’s nuclear posture followed the US decision to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to target Russian soil.
Russia’s primary nuclear test site, located in the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, was where the Soviet Union conducted over 200 nuclear tests. In 2023, Putin signed a law withdrawing Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), a global agreement that aims to ban nuclear weapons testing. He explained that this move was intended to align Russia’s position with that of the United States, which signed but never ratified the treaty.
