Vladimir Putin today ordered his officials to prepare proposals regarding the possibility of conducting nuclear tests, following the statement by United States President Donald Trump last week that the US would resume such tests.
The Russian president said that Russia has strictly adhered to its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, but stressed that if the United States or any other nuclear power conducts a test, then Russia will do the same.
Defense Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin that recent statements and actions by the United States mean it is appropriate to immediately prepare for full-scale nuclear tests.
Belousov added that tests could be carried out at the Arctic test site in a short time.
"I instruct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense... the special services and the relevant political bodies to do everything possible to collect additional information on the issue, analyze it in the Security Council and formulate joint proposals on the possibility of starting work on preparing for nuclear tests," Putin said.
It is recalled that the United States conducted its last test in 1992, China and France in 1996, and the Soviet Union in 1990. Post-Soviet Russia, which inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal, has never conducted a test since then.
Trump: Russia and China are testing
US President Donald Trump recently claimed that Russia and China are conducting nuclear weapons tests but are not talking about it .
We will test nuclear weapons, as other countries do. North Korea tests. Pakistan tests, he continued. They test underground, deep, where people don't really know what's going on. You feel a little vibration. They test and we don't. We have to, Trump insisted.
China has always followed the path of peaceful development, pursues a policy of non-use, first of all, of nuclear weapons, and follows a nuclear strategy based on self-defense and respect for its commitment to suspend nuclear tests, said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, after Trump's statements.
