Russia warns the United States of possible nuclear tests under Trump, by Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian arms control point official warned the incoming Donald Trump administration on Friday that Moscow was considering a full range of possible steps on nuclear testing because of what it described as Trump’s hardline stance on the issue.

Kommersant newspaper quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control, as saying that Trump took a radical stance on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty during his first term.

“The international situation is very difficult at the moment, and American policy in its various aspects is very hostile to us today,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying.

“So the choice of our actions in the interests of ensuring security and the set of possible measures and actions to achieve this – and sending politically appropriate signals, as well as what practitioners think – do not contain any exceptions.”

During Trump’s first term as president from 2017-2021, his administration debated whether or not to conduct the first U.S. nuclear test since 1992, The Washington Post reported in 2020.

Post-Soviet Russia did not conduct a nuclear test. The last test conducted by the Soviet Union was in 1990. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would consider testing a nuclear weapon if the United States did so.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only a handful of countries have tested nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association: the United States last tested in 1992, China and France in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998, and North Korea in 2017. .