Russia on Thursday warned that it would respond if the US began testing nuclear weapons, comments that came after President Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he had ordered the US War Department to start tests.
It’s unclear from President Trump’s post if he meant the testing of nuclear-capable missiles, something the US regularly does, or actually detonating nuclear bombs, which the US hasn’t done since 1992. The president said that he ordered the Pentagon to “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” as other countries.
Russia has recently tested a nuclear-capable missile and a nuclear-capable underwater drone, but there have been no known recent detonations of nuclear weapons by any nation. Since the 1990s, all nuclear-armed states, except North Korea, which last detonated a nuclear bomb in 2017, have maintained a moratorium on detonating nuclear weapons.
“The United States is a sovereign nation and has the right to make sovereign decisions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to Trump’s post. “However, I would like to recall President Putin’s repeatedly stated position: if anyone breaks the moratorium, Russia will respond in kind.”
The US and Russia are signatories to the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but it hasn’t been ratified by all parties, including the US, meaning it’s not technically in force. Russia ratified the CTBT in 2000 but revoked it in 2023, saying it was “mirroring” the US position. Both powers have ratified the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which is in force and prohibits all nuclear test detonations except for those conducted underground.
Peskov also said Russia hasn’t received any notification from the US about a future nuclear weapons test and that Moscow wasn’t aware of any other country that has recently detonated a nuclear bomb. “In his statement, President Trump mentioned that other countries are purportedly involved in testing nuclear weapons. Until now, we were unaware that anyone was engaged in the testing,” he said.
Daryl G Kimball, the Executive Director of Arms Control Today, strongly criticized Trump’s post and noted that it would take years to actually resume the detonation of nuclear weapons. “Trump is misinformed and out of touch. The U.S. has no technical, military, or political reason to resume nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992. It would take at least 36 months to resume contained nuclear tests underground at the former test site in Nevada,” Kymball wrote on X.
