Russia’s Putin sends warning to West about nuclear tests

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Thursday raised the possibility that Russia could resume nuclear testing for the first time in more than three decades and could withdraw its ratification of a landmark nuclear test ban treaty.

Putin, the ultimate decision-maker at the world’s largest nuclear power, also said Moscow had successfully tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik, whose capabilities he has called unparalleled.

However, the Kremlin chief said there was no need to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine as any attack on Russia would provoke a split-second response with hundreds of nuclear missiles that no enemy could survive.

“Do we need to change this? And why? Everything can be changed, but I don’t see the need to do it,” Putin said of the nuclear doctrine, stating that the existence of the Russian state was not threatened.

“I believe that no sane person with a clear memory would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia,” he said.

“I hear calls to start testing nuclear weapons, to test again,” Putin added, referring to suggestions from political scientists and hardline commentators who say such a move could send a powerful message to Moscow’s enemies in the West.

He noted that the United States had signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty but had not ratified it, while Russia had signed and ratified it.

“I’m not willing to say whether we really need to conduct tests or not, but theoretically it is possible to behave in the same way as the United States,” Putin said.

“But this is a question for the deputies of the State Duma (lower house of parliament). In theory, it is possible to withdraw this ratification. That would be enough,” he said.

He was responding to a question from hardline Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov, who wants a tougher nuclear stance.

Military analysts say a resumption of nuclear testing by Russia, the United States or both would be deeply destabilizing at a time when tensions between the two countries are higher than at any time in the past 60 years.

In February, Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the New START treaty that limits the number of nuclear weapons each side can deploy.

Putin said Thursday that Russia had almost finished work on its new generation of Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads.

And Russia, he said, had also successfully tested the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile. She didn’t say when.

Putin accused the West of losing touch with reality over the Ukraine war. If his leaders had forgotten how to reach agreements, then the world would have to see where that arrogance led, he warned.

Putin said it was the West that had fomented the conflict in Ukraine, which he described as part of a much broader struggle between Russia and an arrogant West that he said had lost its sense of reality in the decades since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. .

As he spoke, the ruble fell below 100 to the US dollar. The ruble was trading at around 80 to the US dollar the day before Putin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine sparked a war that devastated swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine, killing or wounding hundreds of thousands of men and causing the biggest break in Russia’s ties with the West in six decades.

The West views the war as Moscow’s biggest strategic mistake since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and Western leaders say they are arming Ukraine so it can defend itself and defeat Russian forces.

So far, the Ukrainian counteroffensive this year has not achieved any major territorial success. Ukraine, which portrays the war as an imperial-style land grab by Russia, says it will not rest until the last Russian soldier is expelled from Ukraine.

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