Destructive Actions
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Russia says destructive actions by the United States such as resuming nuclear tests will result in Moscow doing the same
Russian diplomat Dmitry Glukhov told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion earlier in the year that Moscow could possibly restart nuclear tests was conditional on such activity by the US.
Glukhov was responding to accusations aired by US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Bonnie Jenkins, who claimed that Putin’s speech amounted to a threat of renewed atomic testing.
Russia’s Iskander missile system capable of carrying a nuclear warhead © Sputnik
“I wish to underscore that the aforementioned statement by the Russian president about the hypothetical possibility of our country resuming nuclear tests, mentioned during his speech to the federal legislature, needs to be understood solely in the context of our response to the destructive actions of the US. It was a preventive signal to Washington,” said Glukhov, who serves as third secretary of Russia’s mission to the UN.
“We will resort to such a step only if the US does it first,” the diplomat added.
American tactical nuclear weapons are currently stationed in five European NATO countries – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye.
In the months leading up to Putin’s announcement, Minsk repeatedly asked Russia to station nuclear weapons on its territory, citing aggressive Western policies towards Belarus and the perceived threat posed by US nuclear weapons in Europe.
In mid-June, Putin said that the first Russian nuclear warheads had already arrived in Belarus, a statement that was later confirmed by his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, who said that the weapons had been transferred in a way that would conceal their movements from the West.
Russia has both signed and ratified the agreement, adopted by the UNGA in 1996. However, some Russian outlets reported earlier this month that Moscow was contemplating withdrawal from the treaty, in order to be on par with the US.
The Soviet Union carried out its last nuclear test in 1990, while the last US test of the kind was in 1992.
Source Reuters/AFP/Reuters
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