Russia’s Putin orders review for possible nuclear test response to Trump’s move

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered top Kremlin officials to draw up proposals for a possible resumption of nuclear weapons testing, Moscow’s most serious signal yet that it may abandon a three-decade moratorium, following US President Donald Trump’s order to restart American tests.

Speaking at a Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Putin said that if the United States or any other signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) conducts a test, “Russia would be under obligation to take reciprocal measures.”

“I instruct the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the special services, and the corresponding civilian agencies to gather information, analyse it, and submit proposals focusing on preparations for nuclear weapons tests,” he said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

Russia hasn’t carried out a nuclear test since 1991, but tensions between the two nuclear superpowers have spiked after Trump abruptly cancelled a planned summit with Putin in Hungary last month and followed up with sanctions on two major Russian oil firms.

Days later, Trump announced he had ordered the Pentagon to “immediately” resume testing “on an equal basis” with other nuclear powers, a move that effectively ends a 33-year US moratorium and signals a shift back to Cold War-style brinkmanship.

Defense Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin that Washington’s decisions had “significantly raised the level of military threat to Russia,” adding that the Arctic testing site at Novaya Zemlya could be ready for tests “at short notice.”

Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov echoed the urgency, warning that if Moscow delayed, “time and opportunities for a timely response to the actions of the United States will be lost.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later told reporters that no timeline had been set, saying officials first need to “fully understand the intentions of the United States.”

Russia and the US remain the world’s dominant nuclear powers, each holding more than 5,000 warheads. But analysts warn that a return to testing could dismantle decades of arms control architecture, and set off a dangerous new race just as China, now estimated to have 600 warheads, rapidly expands its arsenal.

The US last conducted a nuclear test in 1992, after then-President George HW Bush imposed a voluntary moratorium that both Washington and Moscow have observed ever since.