Putin Orders Nuclear Test Preparations After Trump’s Remarks
Russian President Vladimir Putin has directed his officials to draw up coordinated proposals for the possible resumption of nuclear weapons tests, a direct response to a recent declaration by U.S. President Donald Trump that the United States would resume testing its own arsenal.
The directive, issued Wednesday during a high-level security meeting, marks a significant escalation in nuclear rhetoric between the world’s two largest nuclear powers
The Trigger: Trump’s Claims
The crisis was triggered last week when President Trump claimed the U.S. would “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” with other nations, suggesting that “Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it.”
U.S. officials, including Energy Secretary Chris Wright, later clarified that any new U.S. tests would likely be “subcritical” experiments without a full nuclear explosion, but the comments reignited global tensions.
Treaties in Peril
For decades, both nations have largely observed a moratorium on nuclear explosions. The U.S. signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996 but never ratified it. Russia, which was a party to the treaty, officially revoked its ratification in 2023 to match the U.S. position.
Neither country has conducted a full nuclear test explosion since the 1990s. The current exchange of threats puts the long-standing global testing moratorium in its most vulnerable position in over a quarter-century. The world awaits a definitive move from either Washington or Moscow as the new nuclear arms race threatens to move from rhetoric to reality.
