Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed his government to submit proposals on the possible resumption of nuclear weapons testing in response to President Trump instructing the Pentagon to do so “on an equal basis” with other countries.
In a meeting Wednesday with his Security Council, Putin said Russia has adhered to the international Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear test explosions.
But, he said, “if the United States or any other state party to the Treaty was to conduct such tests, Russia would be under obligation to take reciprocal measures.”
Mr. Trump claimed in an interview with 60 Minutes that Russia is among a handful of countries testing nuclear weapons when asked about his order.
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” Mr. Trump told CBS News correspondent Norah O’Donnell. “We’re gonna test, because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea’s been testing. Pakistan’s been testing.”
It is unclear what type of testing Mr. Trump is ordering. The last time the U.S. detonated a nuclear device as part of a test was in 1992.
“No one knows what Trump meant about ‘nuclear testing’ (he probably doesn’t himself),” Dmirty Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, wrote in a post on social media Wednesday.
“But he’s the president of the United States,” his post continued. “And the consequences of such words are inescapable: Russia will be forced to assess the expediency of conducting full-fledged nuclear tests itself.”
China was the first of the nations accused by Mr. Trump to deny any secret nuclear testing. A Pakistani official told CBS News that the country “will not be the first to resume nuclear tests.”
Mr. Trump made the assertion to O’Donnell just days after the president’s own nominee to lead STRATCOM — the U.S. military command in charge of nuclear weapons — told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that neither China nor Russia were conducting nuclear explosive tests.
North Korea is the only nation known to have conducted a nuclear detonation since the 1990s. Russia’s last known nuclear explosive test was in 1990, and China’s was in 1996.
The U.S. is among almost 180 nations that have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
Along with China and several other nuclear powers, however, the U.S. has never ratified the treaty, a situation that Putin highlighted in 2023 when he decided to revoke Moscow’s ratification.
While Russia has stepped up its own tests of nuclear-capable and even nuclear-powered weapons systems, it has not announced any resumption of nuclear test detonations.
Putin’s revocation of Russia’s CTBT ratification exactly two years ago fueled speculation that he could order new nuclear detonation tests, along with calls from hawkish members of the Russian parliament for the country to do so. Putin previously suggested that Russia would resume nuclear explosive tests if the U.S. were to do so first.
One year ago, Putin approved changes to Russia’s official nuclear doctrine, formally amending the conditions — and lowering the threshold — under which Moscow would consider using its nuclear weapons.
The updated doctrine, which was announced just as Ukraine launched its first strike deeper into Russia with U.S.-supplied missiles, states that Russia will treat an attack by a non-nuclear state that is supported by a country with nuclear capabilities as a joint attack by both.
That means in theory that any attack on Russia by a country that’s part of a coalition could be seen as an attack by the entire group. Under the doctrine, Russia could theoretically consider any major attack on its territory, even with conventional weapons, by non-nuclear-armed Ukraine sufficient to trigger a nuclear response, because Ukraine is backed by the nuclear-armed United States.
Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine multiple times since he ordered the full-scale invasion of the country on Feb. 24, 2022, and Russia has repeatedly warned the West that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire Western-made missiles deep into its territory, it would consider the U.S. and its NATO allies to be directly involved in the war.
Mr. Trump has so far declined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s repeated requests for U.S.-made Tomahawk long-range missiles.
What does Trump mean by U.S. resuming nuclear tests?
Mr. Trump has not been clear about whether his stated plan to have the U.S. military test its nuclear arsenal includes conducting actual atomic explosions, which have not been carried out in the U.S. for over 30 years, or just expanded testing of the weapons systems used to deliver nuclear warheads.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, downplayed the notion on Sunday that the U.S. was about to start setting off nuclear explosions.
“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions,” Wright told Fox News. “These are what we call ‘non-critical explosions,’ so you’re testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion.”
