Russia issues a warning to the US about potential nuclear tests under Trump

On Friday, Russia’s point man on arms control warned Donald Trump’s incoming government that Moscow was contemplating a wide range of potential nuclear testing measures because of what it claimed was Trump’s extreme stance on the matter.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who is in charge of arms control, was quoted in the Kommersant newspaper as claiming that Trump adopted a hardline stance on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) during his first term.

“The international situation is extremely difficult at the moment, the American policy in its various aspects is extremely hostile to us today,” Ryabkov was said to have said.

“So, the optionality of our actions in the interests of ensuring security and the complex of possible measures and actions to realize this – and to send politically appropriate signals, in addition to what practitioners are considering – does not contain any exceptions.”

The Washington Post reported in 2020 that Trump’s government debated whether to carry out the first U.S. nuclear test since 1992 during his first term as president, which lasted from 2017 to 2021.

Following the Soviet Union There has never been a nuclear test conducted by Russia. The final Soviet test was conducted in 1990. According to President Vladimir Putin, if the US were to conduct a nuclear test, Russia would think about doing the same.

The Arms Control Association claims that after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, only a small number of nations have conducted nuclear weapons tests: North Korea in 2017, China and France in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998, and the United States in 1992.