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Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense / t.me/mod_russia
On Oct. 30, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s recent test of its nuclear-powered Burevestnik long-range cruise missile was “non-nuclear,” as it involved a test of a nuclear delivery system rather than of a nuclear warhead, according to a report by the business publication RBC. Peskov added that the Kremlin hoped U.S. President Donald Trump had been “accurately informed” of that fact, given that on Oct. 29 the American leader announced via social media that he was ordering the U.S. “Department of War” to resume nuclear testing in connection with “other countries testing programs.”
“We are unaware of any such activity elsewhere,” Peskov said, adding that if Trump meant the Burevestnik, “it was by no means a nuclear test.”
The Kremlin spokesman stressed that the United States is a sovereign nation that is free to make its own decisions, but he reminded reporters that Vladimir Putin had made clear Moscow would take “appropriate steps” if any nation abandoned the moratorium on nuclear testing. Washington, he said, had not informed Russia of plans to conduct a test.
In his post, Trump ordered the U.S. military to “immediately” resume nuclear weapons testing “on an equal basis.” The United States last conducted a nuclear test in 1992, meaning Trump’s directive would effectively end a moratorium in place since the Cold War — if indeed an explosion of a nuclear warhead were to be carried out.
The last U.S. nuclear test took place on Sept. 23, 1992, in Nevada, when a 5-kiloton device named Divider was detonated underground as part of Operation Julin. The U.S. then declared a unilateral moratorium and signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) — though the Senate never ratified it. Since then, U.S. laboratories have conducted only subcritical experiments that do not produce a nuclear explosion. Other major nuclear powers have also refrained from testing.
Russia’s last underground nuclear test was conducted in 1990 on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. In 2023, Moscow withdrew its ratification of the CTBT but said it would remain part of the treaty’s monitoring system. China last tested a nuclear weapon in 1996 and has upheld its moratorium ever since, though it too has not ratified the treaty.
North Korea remains the only country to have carried out nuclear tests since the 1990s, conducting six underground detonations at the Punggye-ri site between 2006 and 2017, including one for what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb. Pyongyang has not joined the CTBT and has openly said it could resume testing if it deems there is a military threat.
Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, told The Insider that Trump’s statement should not be interpreted as a clear order to restart nuclear explosions:
“The United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but did not ratify it. The treaty has not entered into force, and the chances of it doing so are actually quite slim, because North Korea and India are not going to ratify it. However, under international law, if you have signed a treaty, you are not allowed to take any action that would contradict it until you withdraw your signature, which has not yet been done. Of course, this is a formal obstacle, and Trump is a man who may not pay attention to such things.
There is a group of people in the U.S. who advocate for the resumption of nuclear testing. This group is not very large. There is a larger group that says the United States does not need to ratify the treaty and, accordingly, does not need to commit to not conducting tests. So, on the one hand, tests are not being conducted, but on the other hand, if they decide that they need to be resumed, then the formal opportunity to do so will exist.”
Podvig also commented on Putin's recent statement about the Poseidon underwater drone, a nuclear-armed vehicle that, according to the Russian dictator, is “impossible to intercept.” According to Podvig, an interception may be difficult, but not impossible:
“If it comes to the deployment of this complex, the Americans will, of course, hunt for submarines carrying Poseidon — they will escort them. They are quite good at it. And if it suddenly comes to a situation where Poseidon is launched, they simply won't let it go anywhere. They will be able to follow it and find a way to fight it.”
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, told The Insider that Trump’s social media remark was too vague to interpret definitively, calling it “just a single sentence”:
“We have very little information to work with — just a single sentence from a social media post. Trump stated he is ordering nuclear testing based on 'the nuclear testing programs of others,' but the word 'reciprocity' was not present in his statement. While the concept of reciprocity is plausible, it's only one of several theories at this point. What Trump actually means remains unclear, and I hope the press will direct these questions to the administration rather than to experts.
An important clarification about terminology: in the United States, 'nuclear testing' is almost immediately identified with testing nuclear weapons that detonate to full yield. None of the Russian weapons tests Putin has been bragging about involved exploding a nuclear warhead. What was tested were delivery systems — not nuclear weapons themselves. The Burevestnik may be nuclear-powered, but testing it is not a nuclear weapons test, just as testing a nuclear submarine that carries nuclear weapons is not a nuclear weapons test. Under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, delivery systems testing is acceptable and does not violate the agreement. This distinction is crucial, and one concern is that the President of the United States may not be making this distinction either — though I suspect he is, because there have been public reports from intelligence agencies, discussed in the New York Times, about Russians potentially cheating by testing nuclear weapons at low-level yields in caves, possibly crossing the line of what was agreed when nuclear nations said they would follow CTBT rules.
Regarding Putin's claims about Poseidon operating at depths where interception is impossible — one of the beauties of these narratives is that the people who could answer the question would have to reveal classified information to do so convincingly. The narrative is perfect because it cannot be contradicted in any convincing detail without revealing something that shouldn't be revealed. I find all of this more in the bandwidth of theater than the concerns of frontline capabilities. We have cyber attacks, we have Ukraine as a theater where all kinds of weaponry is actually being used to kill people and destroy objects, we have exercises where we can see weapons being demonstrated. That bandwidth probably deserves at least as much attention as these narratives about superweapons.”