Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Thursday, November 2, the law on the revocation of the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (Ticen), against a backdrop of conflict in Ukraine and crisis with the West.
The Ticen was opened for signature in 1996, but it never entered into force because it was not ratified – a necessary step for its entry into force – by a sufficient number of states among the forty-four countries which owned nuclear installations at the time of its creation.
At the beginning of October, Mr. Putin announced that his country could revoke the ratification of Ticen in response to the attitude of the United States, which never ratified it. “I am not ready to say whether or not we should resume testing,” added the Russian president, while praising the development of new high-powered missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
“Heinous attitude of the United States”
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian president has blown hot and cold regarding the use of nuclear weapons, deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, his closest ally, during the summer of 2023. The law on the revocation of the ratification of Ticen was first adopted by the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, before being voted unanimously by the upper house at the end of October. Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called the vote “a response to the odious attitude of the United States towards its obligations to maintain global security.”
In late October, Russia also conducted ballistic missile test-firings aimed at preparing its forces for a “massive nuclear strike” in response. Russian nuclear doctrine provides for a “strictly defensive” recourse to atomic weapons, in the event of an attack on Russia with weapons of mass destruction or in the event of aggression with conventional weapons “threatening the very existence of State “. In February, Russia also suspended its participation in the New Start nuclear disarmament treaty, signed with the United States in 2010, the last bilateral agreement linking Russians and Americans.
