Russia ready to lift ban on nuclear tests
At the next meeting the Council of the Russian State Duma will discuss the issue of revoking the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. The president of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, wrote this on Telegram, according to Ria Novosti. “At the next meeting of the Council of the State Duma we will certainly discuss the issue of revoking the ratification of the Treaty on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban – said Volodin – this corresponds to the national interests of our state. And it will be a mirror response to the United States which has not yet ratified the treaty,” he added.
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was signed in 1996 and Russia ratified it in 2000. Some countries, including the United States and China, have not yet ratified it, although countries that possess nuclear weapons have voluntarily pledged not to conduct such tests. The announcement of a possible revocation of the treaty by Moscow came from the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin: Russia could revoke the ratification of the treaty banning nuclear weapons tests, Putin said while speaking at the Valdai forum, in Sochi on the Black Sea. Putin began by saying that the United States signed but not ratified the 1996 total ban on nuclear tests, while Russia signed and ratified it. “In theory, we could revoke the ratification,” he added.
In the same passage of his speech in front of the audience of the think tank linked to the Kremlin, the Russian president announced that Moscow has “successfully conducted the latest test of the nuclear-powered Burevestnik global-range cruise missile.”
Moscow’s possible revocation of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty does not mean that Russia intends to implement itthe. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this. Referring to the words uttered yesterday by Putin, Peskov said that the Russian president “first of all meant the need to bring the factual situation to a common denominator. Because a long time ago we signed and ratified, but the Americans did not ratify. And for bring respect to a common denominator, the president has granted the possibility of withdrawing this ratification. Volodin (the president of the State Duma who in the morning made it clear that the Duma will discuss the issue – ed.) declared himself ready to do so, but this does not mean a declaration of intention to conduct nuclear tests,” Peskov said.
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