Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed senior Kremlin officials to draft a proposal for a possible resumption of nuclear weapons testing, as the Kremlin responds to President Donald Trump’s order for the United States to resume its own nuclear tests “immediately” after a decades-long hiatus.
The Russian leader told the Security Council on Wednesday that “Russia is obliged to take reciprocal measures” if the United States or any signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) conducts a nuclear weapons test, according to a transcript of the meeting released by the Kremlin.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“In this regard, I instruct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the special agencies and the corresponding civilian agencies to do their best to collect additional information on this matter, have it analyzed by the Security Council and submit a coordinated proposal for the first steps, which may focus on preparing for nuclear weapons tests,” Putin said.
Russia has not conducted a nuclear weapons test since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But tensions between the two countries, which have the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, have soared in recent weeks amid growing frustration with President Trump and President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s failure to end the war in Ukraine.
The U.S. leader canceled a planned summit with President Vladimir Putin in Hungary in October and imposed sanctions on two major Russian oil companies the next day. This is President Trump’s first move since returning to the White House in January.
President Trump then said on October 30 that he had ordered the Pentagon to “immediately” resume nuclear weapons testing “on the same basis” as other nuclear-weapon states.
President Trump’s decision came days after he criticized Russia for testing a new Burevestnik missile designed to be nuclear-powered and carry a nuclear warhead.
According to Kremlin records, Putin met with several senior officials in what appeared to be a semi-staged advisory meeting.
Defense Minister Andrei Belosov told Putin that the United States’ recent actions had significantly increased “the level of military threat to Russia” and that “it is essential to maintain nuclear forces at a level of readiness sufficient to inflict unacceptable damage.”
Belousov added that Russia’s Arctic nuclear test site in Novaya Zemlya could conduct nuclear tests at short notice.
Russian military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov also warned that if Russia “does not take appropriate measures now, it will lose time and opportunity to respond in a timely manner to the actions of the United States.”
After the meeting, state news agency Tass quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin had not set a specific deadline for officials to draft the requested proposal.
“It will take as long as it takes to fully understand the intentions of the United States to conclude whether it is appropriate to start preparing for such an experiment,” Peskov said.
Russia and the United States are the world’s largest nuclear powers in terms of the number of warheads they possess.
The Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation (CACNP) estimates that Moscow currently has 5,459 nuclear warheads, 1,600 of which are actively deployed.
According to CACNP, the United States has approximately 5,550 nuclear warheads, of which approximately 3,800 are in operation. At its peak in the mid-1960s during the Cold War, the U.S. stockpile consisted of more than 31,000 active and inactive nuclear warheads.
Although China currently lags far behind, it has rapidly expanded its stockpile of nuclear warheads to about 600 in recent years, and will add about 100 more each year starting in 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The remaining nuclear-armed states are France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.
The last time the United States detonated a nuclear weapon was in 1992, after former Republican President George H.W. Bush issued a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing following the collapse of the Soviet Union the previous year.
Since 1996, when the CTBT was first signed, only three countries have had nuclear explosions.
India and Pakistan conducted an experiment in 1998. North Korea has conducted five explosive tests since 2006, most recently in 2017, making it the only country in the 21st century to do so.
Such explosions were regularly triggered by nuclear powers during the Cold War and had devastating effects on the environment.
President Trump has not yet clarified whether the restart he ordered last week refers to nuclear explosive tests or flight tests of nuclear-capable missiles, where the National Nuclear Safety Administration tests launch systems without requiring an explosion.
Security analysts say that if any of the world’s nuclear powers resume testing nuclear weapons, it would likely trigger a similar reaction in other nuclear powers and would be destabilizing.
Andrei Bakritsky, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said the Kremlin’s response was a classic example of an “action-reaction cycle” that could spark a new nuclear arms race.
“Nobody needs this, but we might get there nonetheless,” he posted on X.
Russian Defense Minister Belousov suggested that Russia should begin preparations for a full-scale nuclear test in response to the US statement. A cycle of action and reaction at its best. No one needs this, but we might still get there
— Andrei Baklitskiy (@baklitskiy) November 5, 2025
