Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, November 5, directed senior officials to prepare proposals on potentially resuming nuclear weapons testing, following comments last week by U.S. President Donald Trump indicating that the United States would restart such tests.
During a meeting with Russia’s Security Council, Putin reiterated Moscow’s long-standing position: Russia has consistently complied with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). However, he warned that if the United States or any other nuclear-armed nation carries out a nuclear test, Russia would be forced to respond in kind with what he called an “appropriate and adequate reaction.”
Defense Minister Andrei Belousov went even further, arguing that recent U.S. statements and what he described as Washington’s “accelerated modernization of strategic offensive weapons” make it “advisable to prepare for full-scale nuclear tests” immediately.
Belousov added that Russia’s Arctic test site in Novaya Zemlya is ready to host such tests on short notice—potentially signalling a return to Cold War-style nuclear brinkmanship after a 35-year testing moratorium.
Putin then issued a formal directive: “I instruct the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, our intelligence agencies, and relevant civilian bodies to gather all possible information on this matter, analyse it within the Security Council, and present coordinated proposals on preparing for possible nuclear weapons tests.”
The order is a direct response to Trump’s announcement that he had instructed the Pentagon to begin nuclear testing “on an equal basis” with Russia and China. The U.S. has not conducted an explosive nuclear test since 1992.
However, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright later clarified that the testing referenced by Trump would involve “non-critical explosions” or systems evaluations—not nuclear detonations. Despite this, Trump has persisted in claiming that Russia and China are already secretly conducting low-yield underground nuclear tests.
While the U.S. signed the CTBT but never ratified it, Russia withdrew its ratification in 2023 but has repeatedly stated it would only resume explosive tests if the United States did so first. Russia has not conducted any nuclear explosion since the last Soviet-era test in 1990.
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