By Andrew Osborn
(Reuters) - President Vladimir&nbsp;Putin&nbsp;on Thursday signed a law withdrawing&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;ratification&nbsp;of the global&nbsp;treaty&nbsp;banning&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;weapons&nbsp;tests, a step condemned by the organisation which promotes adherence to the landmark arms control pact.
The move, though expected, is evidence of the deep chill between the United States and Russia, whose ties are at their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban&nbsp;missile crisis over the war in Ukraine and what Moscow casts as Washington's attempts to stymie the emergence of a new multipolar world order.
Washington expressed deep concern about&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;decision and it was a step in the wrong direction.
"Russia's&nbsp;action will only serve to set back confidence in the international arms control regime," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Moscow says its deratification&nbsp;of the Comprehensive&nbsp;Nuclear&nbsp;Test&nbsp;Ban&nbsp;Treaty&nbsp;(CTBT) is merely designed to bring Russia into line with the United States, which signed but never ratified the&nbsp;treaty. Russia will not resume&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;testing unless Washington does, say Russian diplomats.
Nor, they say, will the move change the&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;posture of Russia, which has the world's largest&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;arsenal, or the way it shares information about its&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;activities as Moscow will remain a&nbsp;treaty&nbsp;signatory.
But some Western arms control experts are concerned that Russia may be inching towards a&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;test&nbsp;to intimidate and evoke fear amid the Ukraine war.
Putin&nbsp;said on Oct. 5 that he was not ready to say whether or not Russia should resume&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;testing after calls from some Russian security experts and lawmakers to&nbsp;test&nbsp;a&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;bomb as a warning to the West.
Such a move, if it did happen, could usher in a new era of big power&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;testing.
Robert Floyd, head of the Comprehensive&nbsp;Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty&nbsp;Organization, whose job is to promote recognition of the&nbsp;treaty&nbsp;and build up its verification regime to ensure no&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;tests go undetected, condemned&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;step.
'DEEPLY REGRETTABLE'
"Today&rsquo;s decision by the Russian Federation to revoke its&nbsp;ratification&nbsp;of the Comprehensive&nbsp;Nuclear-Test-Ban&nbsp;Treaty&nbsp;is very disappointing and deeply regrettable," Floyd, who had tried to lobby senior Russian officials to get them to change their mind, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The&nbsp;treaty&nbsp;established a global network of observation posts that can detect the sound, shockwaves or radioactive fallout from a&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;explosion.
Post-Soviet Russia has not carried out a&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;test. The Soviet Union last&nbsp;tested in 1990 and the United States in 1992. No country except North Korea has conducted a&nbsp;test&nbsp;involving a&nbsp;nuclear&nbsp;explosion this century.
Andrey Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, has said&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;deratification&nbsp;of the CTBT is part of a "slippery slope" towards resuming&nbsp;testing.
It is part of a disturbing trend in recent years that has seen arms control pacts scrapped or suspended, he said last month on X.
"We don&rsquo;t know what steps will follow and when, but we know where this road ends. And we don&rsquo;t want to go there," he said.
Putin's approval of the de-ratification&nbsp;law was posted on a government website which said the decision took immediate effect.&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;parliament has already approved the step.
&nbsp;
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Gareth Jones and Grant McCool)

you might like

Putin revokes Russian ratification of global nuclear test ban treaty