Russia might resume nuclear weapons testing if the United States continues to develop its nuclear arsenal, a senior Russian lawmaker said Sunday (see GSN, March 22).

“A resumption of nuclear testing at Russia’s Novaya Zemlya test range is quite possible if the U.S. pushes ahead with its nuclear weapons program,” said Andrei Kokoshin, a member of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.

Russia should also begin developing precision weapons, Kokoshin said.  Russia conducted its last nuclear weapons test in 1990 and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 2000 (Vladimir Radyuhin, The Hindu, March 25).

All nuclear weapons states will probably need to test their nuclear weapons arsenals at some point, former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov said today.

“Countries of the world will either agree and develop a formula for totally renouncing nuclear weapons, or those possessing them will have to make tests,” Adamov said, adding that nuclear weapons states should purchase supercomputers as a temporary measure to simulate tests.

“The role of nuclear weapons will soon change,” Adamov said.  “One will stop seeing it as a deterrence factor, and it can quite easily become the cheapest means to solve a conflict in order to spare manpower and material values” (Vladimir Rogachev, ITAR-Tass, March 25).

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