Her statements are incredible. A nuclear test over Siberia would be a “nuclear ultimatum” to the West, while the consequences for its own population on the other hand would not be too bad. These are the words of Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Russian radio and television station Russia Today, with a foreign program, when she said in a video in early October that “nothing so terrible” would happen if a thermonuclear explosion took place in her country. Otherwise the Western countries will not give in, “until it hurts a lot”. That is, in Simonian’s world, the West has nothing better to do than to constantly want to “strangle” Russia through the “hands” of Ukraine. Margarita Simonyan, of Armenian descent from parents expelled from Trebizond, is one of the most prominent figures in Russian propaganda.

“To finally reach a balance with the US”

She often appears on her colleague Vladimir Soloviev’s evening discussion panel and is known for her hateful chants against Ukraine and the West, especially the US. But the outlandish suggestion of a nuclear explosion on Russian soil crossed the line. Not only did it annoy viewers, but it also caused problems for the Kremlin. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Simonyan’s words “do not always reflect the official position” and that he “does not believe such discussions are useful.” But it’s not like that. Because the Duma, the Russian parliament, will most likely vote within the week to withdraw Russia from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The idea recently came from President Putin himself and was adopted by Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. A little while ago, the Russian parliamentarians approved a relevant sanctioning law in the first reading, the second reading will follow tomorrow Wednesday and, if everything follows the legislative process, on Thursday it will become the law of the state.

The CTBT is one of the last international arms treaties binding Russia. Moscow’s argument for pulling out is that the US would never ratify the treaty anyway. Therefore, now is the time to take back her own validation in order to “finally” create a balance. Incidentally, both the US and Russia have about 90% of all nuclear warheads in the world. For history the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1996 by China, Russia and the USA. But unlike the Americans and the Chinese, the Russians ratified it through their national parliament in 2000. This is significant, nuclear expert Pavel Podvig of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research points out in an interview with Deutsche Welle .

“There are no clear indications yet, but…”

Podvig explains that the treaty never officially came into force. Despite all this, the five major nuclear powers, the US, Russia, China, France and Britain, have maintained a moratorium on nuclear tests since the 1990s. Neither would India and Pakistan conduct any tests after the ones they did in 1998.” The only deviator, if you will, in this regard is North Korea, which has already conducted six nuclear tests,” he recalls. And he emphasizes that this particular arms treaty is highly regarded in the world: “Nobody will win friends by conducting new nuclear tests. All the ideas being discussed in Russia right now along the lines of ‘let’s scare them all’ are not really likely to frighten anyone. But the condemnation will be unequivocal.” According to the expert, however, withdrawing from the treaty would send a political message and, at least from a purely legal point of view, would be one less reason for the Russians to abide by the self-imposed moratorium.

Russian nuclear expert Maxim Starchak of the Canadian Institute for Foreign Policy Research would not be surprised if Russia does indeed conduct nuclear tests soon. He assures DW, however, that “so far there are no clear indications that Russia plans to do something like this in the near future.” By the way, among nuclear physicists there is no clear opinion on the meaning of such tests: “Some are in favor, some are against, but if they are repeated, a political decision will definitely be needed,” he notes. According to Starchak, Russia has already prepared ground for this on the twin island of Novaya Zemlya. “As far as is known, there are three places where underground nuclear tests can be done. I think that if there was indeed talk of nuclear tests, then it would be those very places. Because I hardly believe that this madness could be done on land explosion”.

The goal is to escalate the war?

Both experts agree that Russia’s impending withdrawal from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty should be taken very seriously. According to Pavel Podvig, a nuclear bomb explosion would serve no military purpose, because its only purpose would be to kill as many people as possible in the shortest possible time. And this is exactly what one should keep in mind. Russia would send the message that it would be ready to “kill a lot of people, tens and hundreds of thousands, millions.” On the other hand, Maxim Starchak is convinced that Russia’s plan is another step in escalating the war against Ukraine. Moscow hopes that the US will see a real danger to itself in this spiral of escalation and will want to reduce that danger by reaching out to Russia and making concessions in the Ukraine war.