MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. A number of signs point to the risk of a resumption of full-scale nuclear tests by the United States, Vladimir Yermakov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department, has told TASS.

"A number of indirect signs indicate that the probability of Washington resuming full-scale nuclear tests should not be ignored," he said when asked whether the US was planning to resume nuclear weapons testing.

"With regard to the response that could be given in case Washington resumes nuclear weapons testing, everything is pretty clear. The US will not derive unilateral benefits from this. Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials have repeatedly warned that we will be forced to act proportionately," he added.

Yermakov pointed out that for now there were no official statements from Washington about its intentions to conduct nuclear tests in the near future. US officials, he said, vow that their country plans to adhere to the relevant moratorium. Nevertheless, Moscow is greatly worried about US activities "aimed at keeping the Nevada test site on high alert."

"The Americans’ activity at this facility, including the calibration explosion of a chemical substance carried out there on October 18, 2023, makes us suspicious once again regarding the true intentions of the United States," Yermakov pointed out.

"The United States is not abandoning its destructive policy towards the main international legal mechanism in the field of nuclear test ban - the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). In more than a quarter of a century of the CTBT's existence, the United States has never bothered to ratify it," he concluded.

Explosion in Nevada

On October 18, 2023 the US Department of Energy said that the Nevada National Security Site "conducted a subsurface chemical explosion … to improve the United States’ ability to detect low-yield nuclear explosions around the world."