The Russian parliament revokes the ratification of the Nuclear Test Treaty
The Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament, has voted in favor of a law revoking Moscow's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
On October 25, the Federation Council approved the law with 156 votes in favor and zero against, the last stage before signing by President Vladimir Putin. Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, passed the law earlier this month.
Putin had called for action to "mirror" the position of the United States, which signed but not ratified the 1996 treaty.
The CTBT has been signed by 187 countries and ratified by 178, but it cannot enter into force until eight laggard countries – China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, North Korea, India, Pakistan and the United States – have signed it and ratified.
Although the United States has not yet ratified the treaty, it has observed a moratorium on nuclear weapons test explosions since 1992 and says it has no intention of abandoning its observance.
Analysts have expressed fears that Russia may resume nuclear tests to try to discourage the West from continuing to offer military support to Ukraine. Many Russian hawks have spoken out in favor of resuming testing.
Nuclear tests 1945 2013
Putin said he had not made a decision on the matter, while stressing that some experts had argued for the need to conduct nuclear tests.
CNN last month published satellite images showing how Russia, the United States and China have built new facilities at their nuclear test sites in recent years.
The U.S. Department of Energy said last week that it conducted a chemical explosion at its nuclear test site in Nevada “to improve the United States' ability to detect low-yield nuclear explosions worldwide.”
Speaking to the Council before the October 25 vote, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the explosion in Nevada was “undoubtedly a political signal.”
“As our president has said, we must be on high alert and if the United States moves to begin nuclear testing, we will have to respond in kind,” he said.
Obviously the tests are not particularly necessary, especially for the great powers that have conducted hundreds of them in the past, releasing a good amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere. For everyone it is a political signal, a policy tending towards self-destruction.
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The article The Russian parliament revokes the ratification of the Treaty against nuclear tests comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-parlamento-russo-revoca-la-ratifica-del-trattato-contro-gli-esperimenti-nucleari/ on Thu, 26 Oct 2023 07:00:09 +0000.