Russian Lawmakers Take First Step To Revoke Ratification

Russia’s parliament took the first step towards revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and its top lawmaker hinted it might go further by abandoning the pact altogether.

Parliament’s lower house, the Duma, voted by 412 to zero, with no abstentions, to approve the withdrawal of the ratification in the first of three readings.

Russia says the aim is to restore parity with the United States, which has signed but never ratified the 1996 treaty, and that it will not resume testing unless Washington does.

However, arms control experts are concerned that Russia may be inching towards a test that would be perceived as a threatening signal by the West at a time of heightened confrontation over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, no country except North Korea has conducted a test involving a nuclear explosion this century. At least one senior Russian security expert has said Russia should test a nuclear bomb as a warning to the West, but President Vladimir Putin said on October 5 he was not ready to say whether a test was needed or not.

Report says swift passage of the deratification bill was guaranteed after 440 of the Duma’s 450 members attached their signatures to it as sponsors last week.

While Russia is revoking ratification, it has said it will remain a signatory to the CTBT and continue to supply data to the global monitoring system which alerts the world to any nuclear test.

However, parliament speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, a member of Putin’s Security Council, said Russia might go further and would keep the United States guessing about its intentions.

“Our vote is a response to the State Department. And what we will do next whether we remain a party to the treaty or not, we will not tell them. We must think about global security, the safety of our citizens and act in their interests,” he said.

Russia’s move was a wake-up call for Washington after the “rudeness” of its failure to ratify the CTBT for the past 23 years, Volodin said.

REUTERS/Christopher Ojilere