1 of 1 FILE PHOTO/27. JUNE 2023: Putin during a conversation with Russian army soldiers Photo: Mikhail Tereshchenko/Sputnik via Portal FILE PHOTO/27. JUNE 2023: Putin during a conversation with Russian army soldiers Photo: Mikhail Tereshchenko/ Sputnik via Portal
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed this Thursday (2) a law revoking Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive NuclearTestBan Treaty. The information was published by TASS, the official Russian agency.
The 1996 treaty bans all nuclear weapons testing but never came into force because some key countries including the United States and China never ratified it.
Russia says it will not resume testing unless Washington does so and that deatification does not change its nuclear posture or the way it shares information about its nuclear activities.
Some Western arms control experts fear that Russia faces an attempt to intimidate and stoke fear in the wake of the war in Ukraine an idea that Russian officials have downplayed.
Putin said on Oct. 5 he was not ready to say whether Russia should resume nuclear testing after some security experts and Russian lawmakers called for testing a nuclear bomb as a warning to the West.
If such a move actually happens, it could usher in a new era of nuclear testing by major powers, Western experts fear.
Putin’s approval of the deratification law was posted on a government website, which said the decision would take effect immediately. Both chambers of the Russian parliament have already approved the measure.
“Deeply regrettable”
Robert Floyd, head of the Comprehensive NuclearTestBan Treaty Organization, whose mission is to promote recognition of the treaty and establish its verification system to ensure that no nuclear test goes unnoticed, condemned Russia’s move.
“Today’s decision by the Russian Federation to withdraw ratification of the Comprehensive NuclearTestBan Treaty is very disappointing and deeply regrettable,” Floyd, who has tried to persuade senior Russian officials to change their minds, said on X (formerly Twitter).
The treaty established a global network of observation posts that can detect sounds, shock waves or radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion.
PostSoviet Russia has never conducted a nuclear test. The Soviet Union conducted the last test in 1990, the United States in 1992. No country except North Korea has conducted a nuclear explosion test this century.
Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said Russia’s deatification of the CTBT was part of a “slippery slope” toward resuming testing.
“We don’t know what steps we will take and when, but we know where this path ends. And we don’t want to go there,” he said.