State Duma of Russian Federation revoked ban on nuclear tests
The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted in the second and third readings the draft law on the withdrawal of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to Nastoyaschee vremya.
The document was submitted to the State Duma on October 13 after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it is possible to consider withdrawing the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, as the United States has not ratified this treaty.
"For 23 years, we have been waiting for Washington to ratify the treaty. What is it? Double standards, meanness, and irresponsible attitude - you can't call it any other way. In this situation, we must be guided exclusively by the interests of the citizens of our country, our state. Therefore, there is a proposal to withdraw the ratification ", - said the speaker of the Russian parliament Vyacheslav Volodiv, commenting on the submission of the draft law to the State Duma.
Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov previously said that the adoption of the law on withdrawal of ratification will not mean that Russia will start conducting nuclear tests.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996. The document did not enter into force because it was not signed by a sufficient number of countries. The US signed it but did not ratify it.
Russia conducted its last nuclear test in 1990. In February 2023, Putin ordered the preparation of a test site on Novaya Zemlya for the test of nuclear weapons, which Russia would conduct if the United States did it first.
In September of this year, the president of the Kurchatov Institute National Research Center and a friend of Putin, Mykhailo Kovalchuk, proposed testing nuclear weapons on Novaya Zemlya to "scare the West." He recalled that in 1961, the USSR tested the most powerful thermonuclear bomb in history with a capacity of more than 50 megatons. "Now the situation is the same. It is enough to conduct tests on Novaya Zemlya, - Kovalchuk declared. - At least once. And everything will fall into place."
