Russia’s arms control point man cautioned Donald Trump’s incoming administration on Friday that Moscow was considering a whole range of possible steps on nuclear testing due to what it said was Trump’s radical position on the issue.

The Kommersant newspaper quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control, as saying that Trump took a radical position on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) during his first term.

“The international situation is extremely difficult at the moment, the American policy in its various aspects is extremely hostile to us today,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying.

“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 contain any exceptions.”

During Trump’s first 2017-2021 term as president, his administration discussed whether or not to conduct the first US nuclear test since 1992, the Washington Post reported in 2020.

Post-Soviet Russia has not carried out a nuclear test. The Soviet Union last tested in 1990. President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia would consider testing a nuclear weapon if the United States did.

Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, only a few countries have tested nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association: the United States last tested in 1992, China and France in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998, and North Korea in 2017.

Opinion

Editorial

From gains to gaps
27 Apr, 2025

From gains to gaps

AS we mark World Immunisation Week 2025 — themed ‘Immunisation for All is Humanly Possible’ — we are faced...
Crisis talks
Updated 27 Apr, 2025

Crisis talks

Sense needs to be restored so that the Pahalgam attack may be independently investigated and the victims given justice.
BYC women in jail
27 Apr, 2025

BYC women in jail

THE detained Baloch Yakjehti Committee leader Mahrang Baloch and other BYC activists, including women, are reported...
Time for restraint
Updated 26 Apr, 2025

Time for restraint

Neither Pakistan nor India can afford another war. It is time again to give diplomacy a chance.
A wise decision
Updated 26 Apr, 2025

A wise decision

GOOD sense seems to have finally prevailed, with the federal government deferring the planned canal projects,...
‘Fake’ Pakistanis
26 Apr, 2025

‘Fake’ Pakistanis

THE revelation is shocking. Hundreds of individuals holding Pakistani passports who were detained by the Saudi...