Russian deputies approved on Tuesday at first reading the revocation of the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a new setback in terms of non-proliferation against a backdrop of conflict in Ukraine and crisis with the West.
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This vote comes shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin called for it, refusing however to say whether Russia intended to resume tests.
During a vote in the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, 412 deputies said they were in favor of revoking the ratification in 2000 of the text.
This international treaty is one of three agreements of universal scope on nuclear disarmament, along with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1968 (NPT) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons of 2017 (TIAN). .
At the beginning of October, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that his country could “withdraw its agreement to ratify” the CTBT in response to the fact that the United States had never ratified it.
“Washington must understand once and for all that their hegemony will not lead to anything good,” Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Tuesday.
He assured that MPs were revoking the ratification to “defend” their citizens and maintain “global strategic equality”.
This measure raises the risk of possible new nuclear tests and an acceleration of the arms race.
“I am not ready to say whether or not we should resume testing,” Mr. Putin also said at the beginning of October, who praised the development of new high-powered missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, it has blown hot and cold regarding the use of nuclear weapons.
Russia, since the breakup of the USSR, has not conducted nuclear tests. The last one, led by the Soviet Union, dates back to 1990 and that of the United States to 1992.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was opened for signature in 1996, but it never entered into force because all 44 states that had nuclear facilities at the time of its creation did not ratify it.
Russia, France and the United Kingdom have done so, but neither the United States nor China have.
However, this international treaty has made the world safer for more than 25 years, acting as a safeguard, at a time when the world fears a nuclear arms race, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.