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Russia’s potential withdrawal from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) will not imply that the country will restore nuclear tests, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday in a statement.
The statement came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday that Moscow could potentially revoke its ratification of the CTBT, as a mirror response to the United States.
Peskov said Russia has long signed and ratified the treaty, while the U.S. hasn’t done so. However, Putin’s remarks should not be viewed as a statement of intention to resume nuclear tests.
Meanwhile, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, also said on Friday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that “#Russia plans to revoke ratification (which took place in the year 2000) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.”
“The aim is to be on equal footing with the #US who signed the Treaty, but didn’t ratify it. Revocation doesn’t mean the intention to resume nuclear tests,” he said.
The announcement by Ulyanov added new fuel to tensions over arms control disputes between the world’s largest nuclear weapons powers.
“We are disturbed by the comments of Ambassador Ulyanov in Vienna today,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “A move like this by any State Party needlessly endangers the global norm against nuclear explosive testing.”
The CTBT is a multilateral agreement that bans all nuclear explosion tests, conducted for peaceful or military purpose. The treaty was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, and has been signed by 187 nations and ratified by 178 as of September 2023.
