Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday that Moscow still hasn’t received clarification from the US on President Trump’s order for the US military to begin testing nuclear weapons.
“So far, Moscow has not received any explanations on what President Trump meant when he announced the resumption of nuclear tests,” Lavrov said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
It was unclear from Trump’s order, which he delivered in a post on Truth Social, if he meant testing nuclear-capable weapons or restarting tests that involved detonating nuclear warheads, something the US, Russia, and every other nuclear-armed power except for North Korea hasn’t done since the 1990s.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said a few days after Trump’s post that nuclear explosions were not on the table, at least for now, but this has not been conveyed to Moscow, based on comments from Russian officials.
“It is unclear whether it was a question of testing nuclear weapons carriers, of conducting so-called subcritical tests. Or maybe Donald Trump really talked about Washington’s intention to resume full-scale nuclear tests,” Lavrov said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said on Sunday that Russia needs “clarification” on what Trump meant. In response to Trump’s comments, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials to submit proposals on the possibility of resuming “full-scale” nuclear weapons tests.
“As for the instruction of President Vladimir Putin at the meeting of the Security Council on November 5, it was accepted for execution and is in the works. The public will be informed about the results,” Lavrov said in reference to Putin’s order.
At the Security Council meeting, Putin said that Russia would maintain its moratorium on testing nuclear weapons in line with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but that Moscow would respond if the US or any other party conducts such tests. The US is a signatory to the CTBT but has never ratified it. Russia did ratify the treaty in 2000 but withdrew the ratification in 2023, saying it was “mirroring” the US position.
