Putin signs law allowing nuclear weapons testing in Russia

Reuters reported the information.

The Kremlin claims that its deratification of the treaty is aimed at ensuring that Russia has the same rights as the United States, which has signed but not ratified the treaty.

Russian diplomats have stated that Moscow will not resume nuclear tests unless Washington does so. At the same time, in February 2023, Putin ordered the preparation of a nuclear weapons test site on Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean between the Barents and Kara Seas belonging to Russia's Arkhangelsk region.

Putin said on October 5 that he was not ready to say whether Russia should resume nuclear testing, after calls from some Russian lawmakers to test a nuclear bomb as a warning to the West.

On October 25, Russian troops conducted a training "massive nuclear strike," launching an intercontinental ballistic missile Yars from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region to the Kura test site in Kamchatka. Additionally, from the Barents Sea, a ballistic missile Sineva was launched from the nuclear submarine Tula.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was adopted at the 50th session of the UN General Assembly in September 1996. It was signed by 177 states but ratified by 138.