The threat: Here Putin can detonate new nuclear weapons

Russia

The threat: Here Putin can order nuclear weapons tests

Johan Edgar

Published 00.12

An intercontinental ballistic missile of the RS-28 type (known in the West as “Satan 2”) is launched in Russia, 2022. Photo: AP

Defense Minister Belousov addressed Putin during the meeting with the Security Council.

– We should immediately begin preparations for full-scale nuclear weapons tests, he said.

And it could happen quickly.

Satellite images show how Russia has secretly equipped its test base in the Arctic Ocean.

It was 35 years since the last one.

Then Russia carried out the last full-scale nuclear test at “Field B” on the desolate Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

Geographically, the Arctic islands are considered part of northeastern Europe.

Putin’s order on nuclear weapons

New nuclear explosions could soon take place at the underground facilities on the islands. The official test site covered more than half of the archipelago.

 

 APPhoto: AP

“I order the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the security services and the relevant civilian authorities to collect additional information on this issue, analyze it in the Security Council and submit coordinated proposals on possible preparations for nuclear tests,” Putin said on Wednesday during a meeting of his Security Council, The Moscow Times reports.

Putin’s statement comes after Donald Trump’s announcement last week that he had ordered the military “to start testing our nuclear weapons on equal terms” with other countries.

It was unclear what he meant, as no other country except North Korea has tested nuclear weapons in the 21st century.

 

Donald Trump said last week that he had ordered the military “to start testing our nuclear weapons on equal terms”. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / AP

USA: Not going to test

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright was careful to point out afterwards that Trump did not mean that the US would conduct new tests.

Both Russia and the US signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, which bans all nuclear tests.

“Russia has always fulfilled its commitments in the CTBT and we have no plans to step back from them,” Putin told the Security Council.

“But if the US or other countries that have signed the treaty conduct such tests, Russia must also take appropriate measures.”

Satellite images show preparations

Defense Minister Andrei Belousov then turned to Putin and said that preparations for full-scale nuclear tests should begin immediately.

– The readiness of the Novaya Zemlya test base means that they will be carried out quickly, he said.

 

Between 1955 and 1990, the Soviet Union detonated a total of 134 nuclear charges on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Photo: Getty Images

In September 2023, the CNN television channel revealed, using satellite images of the islands, that Russia had been working to upgrade the base for several years.

– The Russian test base is now open year-round. We see them clearing snow from the roads, we see them building new buildings, Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a research and education center that works to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction, told CNN at the time.

Near the new buildings are tunnels where Russia tested nuclear weapons during the Soviet era.

Digging new test tunnels

“In the last five or six years, we have seen Russia dig new tunnels, which indicates that they are ready to resume nuclear tests,” Lewis told CNN in 2023.

However, he said that Russia could do all this, knowing that they were being monitored, to “scare the West.”

 

The Novaya Zemlya archipelago is located in the Barents Sea. Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto

The new developments mean that the possible deterrent measures could develop into something worse.

“No one knows what Trump means by ‘nuclear tests’ (he probably doesn’t even know himself}. But he is the president of the United States and the consequences of such words cannot be avoided. Russia will be forced to assess the appropriateness of conducting its own full-scale nuclear tests,” writes Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, on social media, according to The Moscow Times.

Exploded giant bomb

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov recorded the president’s remarks later on Wednesday, the newspaper reports.

He believes that Putin did not order preparations for new test explosions, but rather that the possibility of such preparations should be studied.

– That’s what they’re going to do now, Peskov said, according to The Moscow Times.

 

The Tsar Bomb detonates in 1961. Photo: Rosatom

Between 1955 and 1990, the Soviet Union detonated a total of 134 nuclear devices on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

One of these was what the West calls the Tsar Bomb, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. In the Soviet Union, the giant bomb went by the more bland designation “Product 602”