00:00 The Russian parliament on Tuesday declared that it is revoking ratification of the comprehensive
00:07 nuclear test ban treaty, an action it says was necessitated as a result of the irresponsible
00:14 attitude of the United States towards global security.
00:18 Parliament's lower house, the Duma, voted by 412 to 0 with no abstentions to approve
00:24 the withdrawal of the ratification in the first of three readings.
00:28 In the interests of ensuring the security of our country, we are withdrawing the ratification
00:32 of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, Duma Speaker Volodymyr Yatsytslav said ahead
00:38 of a debate and parliamentary vote on revoking ratification.
00:41 Volodymyr said that while Russia had ratified the treaty in 2000, Washington had failed
00:47 to ratify because of its irresponsible attitude to global security issues.
00:52 The Russian Federation will do everything to protect its citizens and to maintain global
00:56 strategic parity.
00:57 The announcement from the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament comes a week
01:03 after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was not ready to say whether or not Russia
01:08 should resume nuclear testing to issue a stern warning to the West.
01:12 A resumption of nuclear tests by Russia, the United States or China could indicate the
01:16 start of a new nuclear arms race between the big powers who stopped nuclear testing in
01:20 the years following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
01:24 For many scientists and campaigners, the splurge of nuclear bomb testing during the Cold War
01:29 indicated the folly of nuclear brinkmanship which could ultimately destroy humanity and
01:34 contaminate the planet for hundreds of thousands of years.
01:38 But the Ukraine war has raised tensions between Moscow and Washington to the highest level
01:42 since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, just as China seeks to bolster its nuclear arsenal
01:48 to accord with its status as an emerging superpower.
01:51 The erstwhile Soviet Union conducted the last nuclear test in 1990, with new-born Russia
01:56 yet to open its account.
01:58 The US, on the other hand, conducted its last nuclear test in 1992.
02:02 According to the United Nations, in the five decades between 1945 and 1996, more than 2,000
02:08 nuclear tests were carried out, 1,032 of them by the United States and 715 of them by the
02:14 Soviet Union.
02:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments