Russia warns ‘radical’ Donald Trump against resuming nuclear testing
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Ministers warned the US that its nuclear arsenal is intended to ‘sober up’ countries on the ‘brink of direct armed conflict’ with Russia. Russia has warned it “rules out nothing” regarding nuclear testing in response to Donald Trump’s “radical” position on the issue during his first term as president.
![[Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov addresses Russian lawmakers]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/05/16/15/Russia_Cold_War_Treaty_01736.jpg)
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control, warned the United States that its nuclear arsenal is intended to “sober up” countries on the “brink of direct armed conflict” with Russia. Russia, the US and China are all undertaking major modernisations of their nuclear weapons just as the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of the Cold War era between the Soviet Union and the US is starting to fall apart.
![[Russian soldiers load Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile launchers as part of a military drill intended to train the troops in using tactical nuclear weapons]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/11/19/17/Russia_Nuclear_12526.jpg)
Mr Ryabkov told the Kommersant newspaper: “The international situation is extremely difficult at the moment, the American policy in its various aspects is extremely hostile to us today. “So the optionality of our actions in the interests of ensuring security and the complex of possible measures and actions to realise this - and to send politically appropriate signals, in addition to what practitioners are considering - does not rule anything out.”.
He added: “The reality of the role of nuclear weapons in Russian security policy is, in any case, unchanged: this instrument, until the moment of its hypothetical use in extreme circumstances of self-defence, is intended to admonish, if you will, sober up those who decide to encroach on the fundamental interests of our state, balancing, as is happening now, on the brink of a direct open armed conflict with us.”.
