Putin Withdraws Russia from Global Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, Angering US

Friday, 11/03/2023 16:16 IWST

Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin watches the Vostok 2022 (East 2022) military exercises at the Sergeyevsky training ground in the far eastern Primorsky Territory, Russia, Tuesday (6/9/2022). The joint military exercise was attended by countries friendly to Russia such as China, Belarus, India, Mongolia and Syria. More than 50,000 troops and more than 5,000 units of military equipment, including 140 aircraft and 60 ships, were involved in the exercise. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill to withdraw ratification of a global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. This angered the United States (US) and organizations that encourage compliance with the important arms control pact.

The move, while expected, is evidence of deep tensions between the United States and Russia over the war in Ukraine, with relations at their lowest point since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

Washington expressed deep concern about Russia’s decision and said it was the wrong step.

“Russia’s actions will only serve to undermine confidence in the international arms control regime,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, quoted The GuardianFriday (3/11/2023).

Moscow says its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was only designed to bring Russia into line with the US, which signed but never ratified the treaty. The US signed the CTBT in 1996 but the Senate did not ratify it.

But successive US administrations have implemented moratoriums on nuclear weapons testing.

Meanwhile, Russian diplomats said their country would not resume nuclear tests unless Washington did.

Speaking in Sochi a month ago, Putin made several references to nuclear weapons. He said he was “not ready to say now whether we really need or don’t need to carry out tests”, and added “As a rule, experts say, with new weapons – you need to make sure that the special warhead will function without failure. “

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin and other Russian officials have frequently drawn attention to the country’s nuclear arsenal, which is the world’s largest, in an effort to dissuade other countries from helping Ukraine fight the invasion.

Any nuclear test by Russia would be the first since 1990, and the last by the Soviet Union. Retesting by a nuclear superpower would undo one of the major advances in non-proliferation since the cold war.

Robert Floyd, chairman of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, whose job is to promote recognition of the treaty and establish a verification regime to ensure no nuclear tests go undetected, condemned Russia’s move.

“The Russian Federation’s decision today to withdraw its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is deeply disappointing and deeply regrettable,” said Floyd, who has been trying to lobby senior Russian officials to change their minds.

The treaty established a global network of observation posts that can detect sound, shock waves or radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions.

Post-Soviet Russia has not conducted nuclear tests. No country except North Korea has conducted a test involving a nuclear explosion this century.

Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher at the UN’s Institute for Disarmament Research, said last month that Russia’s deratification of the CTBT was part of a “slippery slope” towards resuming CTBT testing. This is part of a disturbing trend in recent years of arms control agreements being canceled or suspended, he said.

“We don’t know what steps will be taken and when, but we know where this road ends. And we don’t want to go there,” he said.

Putin’s approval of the deratification law was posted on a government website stating that the decree would take effect immediately. The Russian parliament has approved the move.

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