- Russia warns that resuming US nuclear tests will trigger a chain reaction.
- The Russian representative criticizes the withdrawal of the US from the moratorium on nuclear tests.
- The US says its intention is in response to tests by Russia and China.
Russia warned on Tuesday that a possible resumption of nuclear tests by the United States could trigger a chain reaction. This was reported by the AFP agency, writes TASR. The warning was given by the permanent representative of Russia at the UN Office in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, who spoke at the Conference on Disarmament. In his speech, he returned to US President Donald Trump’s statement from last October that the United States would resume nuclear tests. Trump justified this intention by saying that Russia and China are also doing them, but in secret.
“We caution that a US withdrawal from the national moratorium would have a domino effect,” Gatilov said through an interpreter. At the same time, he emphasized that “responsibility for the consequences would be borne exclusively by Washington”. According to the Russian diplomat, the US position also contributes to the problems faced by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. It would have banned all nuclear explosions, but has not yet come into force.
US Secretary of State for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Christopher Yeaw suggested last week that Trump meant his statement. “As the president has said, the United States will return to testing on — and I quote — ‘the same principle,'” Yeaw said at a Hudson Institute think tank event.
The same principle, he said, does not mean a return to such tests as the atmospheric explosion of the Ivy Mike thermonuclear device in 1952, but “a response to the previous standard that you find in China or Russia.” He did not announce the date of the possible test, saying that the decision is up to Trump. Yeaw claims that China conducted a weaker nuclear test underground on June 22, 2020 and is preparing more explosions that will be more powerful. A similar accusation is addressed to the USA and Russia.
