Russian nuclear test chief says Moscow ready to resume testing ‘at any moment’

The head of Russia’s nuclear testing site said on Tuesday his secretive facility was ready to resume nuclear tests “at any moment” if Moscow gave the order, in rare comments likely to fuel concerns that the risk of such a step is rising.

Moscow has not conducted a nuclear weapons test since 1990, the year before the fall of the Soviet Union, but some Western and Russian analysts say President Vladimir Putin could order one to try to send a message of deterrence to the West if it lets Ukraine use its long-range missiles to strike Russia, something that is under discussion.

A nuclear test by Russia could encourage others such as China or the United States to follow suit, starting a new nuclear arms race between the big powers, which stopped nuclear testing in the years after the Soviet collapse.

Russia’s testing site, located on the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, was where the Soviet Union conducted more than 200 nuclear tests, including the detonation of the world’s most powerful nuclear bomb ever in 1961.

It is closely watched by Western spy satellites for activity amid signs of construction work last summer shown in open-source satellite images.