MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. If the United States has really conducted nuclear tests in Nevada, Russia will interpret this as a step toward escalation, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said on Friday.
"If they really conducted nuclear tests, this is a step toward escalation on their part," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said earlier on Friday that Russia is verifying information on an underground blast conducted at a proving ground in the US state of Nevada. He also recalled President Vladimir Putin’s warning that if the United States tests nuclear arms, Russia would do the same.
On October 18, the US Department of Energy reported that the United States "conducted a subsurface chemical explosion at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) to improve the United States’ ability to detect low-yield nuclear explosions around the world."
Earlier, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Vladimir Yermakov said that Washington was keeping its proving ground in Nevada in a state of high readiness and, therefore, Moscow believed that the Americans had not abandoned the idea of conducting a full-fledged nuclear test as part of the modernization of their nuclear arsenal.