N-arms race, again: Russia denies, America prepares
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid fears of a renewed nuclear arms race, three decades after they stopped it, Russia has clarified that its fresh tests were “not nuclear” while President Donald Trump said on Thursday he is ordering the US to restart nuclear tests as a response to actions by ‘other countries.’
Russia and the United States hold 90 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal, or about 11,000 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Moscow on Thursday sought to cool rising nuclear tensions with Washington, after two tests of new Russian nuclear-capable weapons systems prompted Trump to order his own country’s nuclear tests, the media reported.
The Kremlin said its testing of nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable weapons, the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Poseidon underwater drone, did not constitute a direct test of an atomic weapon.
Both countries observe a de facto moratorium on testing nuclear warheads, although Russia regularly runs military drills involving systems that are capable of carrying such weapons, the reports said.
“Regarding the tests of Poseidon and Burevestnik, we hope that the information was conveyed correctly to President Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists during a daily briefing.
“This cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test,” he added.
Trump, however, said on Thursday he was ordering to restart US tests as a response to actions by other states.
“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” he said in a social media post.
But it was not immediately clear if Trump was referring to testing nuclear warheads — which the United States last did in 1992 — or testing weapons systems capable of carrying atomic warheads.
The Kremlin implied that it would also test nuclear warheads if Trump ordered a live test of an atomic weapon.
“If someone departs from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly,” Peskov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that if the United States started testing nuclear weapons again, Russia would follow suit.
In 1996, the two countries signed — but have not ratified — the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all atomic test blasts, whether for military or civilian purposes.
Announcing the recent tests, Putin boasted that Russia’s new nuclear-powered devices could reach any continent in the world and were impervious to defences.
