MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s arms control chief warned the incoming Donald Trump administration on Friday that Moscow was considering a wide range of possible measures on nuclear testing because of what he said was Trump’s radical position on the issue. .
The Kommersant newspaper quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control, as saying that Trump took a radical position on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) during his first term.
“The international situation is extremely difficult at the moment, American policy in its various aspects is extremely hostile towards us today,” Riabkov said.
“Therefore, the optionality of our actions in the interest of ensuring security and the set of possible measures and actions to achieve this and send politically appropriate signals, in addition to what professionals are considering, does not contain any exception.”
During Trump’s first term as president (2017-2021), his administration discussed whether or not to conduct the first US nuclear test since 1992, the Washington Post reported in 2020.
Post-Soviet Russia has not conducted any nuclear tests. The Soviet Union last conducted tests in 1990. President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would consider testing a nuclear weapon if the United States did so.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only a few countries have tested nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association: the United States last tested them in 1992, China and France in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998, and North Korea in 2017.