MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. Russia is verifying information on an underground blast conducted at a proving ground in the US state of Nevada, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Friday.
"If this information is true (it is presently being verified), this does not involve a nuclear weapon testing and this blast does not contradict either the US moratorium on nuclear tests or the provisions of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that has not come into force," the high-ranking diplomat said in a commentary posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website.
"We keep monitoring the situation and want to mention what Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on February 21, 2023: 'Naturally, we will not be the first to do it, but if the United States conducts a nuclear test, we will also carry it out,'" the high-ranking diplomat said.
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 kept maintaining its proving ground in Nevada in a high-readiness state and, therefore, Moscow believed that the Americans had not abandoned the idea of conducting a full-fledged nuclear test as part of modernization of their nuclear arsenal.