“Donald Trump was right,” Ratcliffe wrote on the X platform, attaching to the entry a statement by the former head of the DIA military intelligence agency from 2019 and an article from the Wall Street Journal from 2020. In the first statement, Gen. Robert Ashley said that the US did not believe that Russia would respect the moratorium on non-zero nuclear tests. The article mentions that China could secretly conduct small nuclear tests.
Who accuses Russia and China of secret nuclear tests?
Why does John Ratcliffe say Donald Trump was right?
What are Donald Trump's claims regarding nuclear testing?
What did the Minister of Energy say about nuclear tests in the US?
Ratcliffe's vote was also supported by the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tom Cotton.
“After consulting with Director Ratcliffe and his team, they confirmed to me that the CIA estimates that both Russia and China have conducted supercritical nuclear weapons tests at a power level that exceeds the US zero-power standard,” the politician wrote.
Donald Trump accuses Russia and China. Talks about “secret nuclear weapons tests”
Ratcliffe and Cotton's words are reactions to Donald Trump's claims in a CBS interview broadcast on Sunday that Russia and China – but also Pakistan – are conducting secret nuclear tests by detonating nuclear warheads deep underground.
Although suspicions that both hostile nuclear powers could carry out such tests have been discussed for a long time, American officials have never confirmed these suspicions. On Thursday, Trump's nominee for commander of Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Vice Admiral Richard Corell, said in the Senate that the last nuclear test in the form of a nuclear explosion took place in 2017 and was carried out by North Korea, while China carried out its last test in 1996.
Despite Trump's announcement that the US would resume nuclear tests (the last one took place in 1992), on Sunday Energy Minister Chris Wright stated that there were no plans to carry out tests involving nuclear explosions.
“I think the tests we're talking about now are systems tests,” Wright said. — These are not nuclear explosions. “These are what we call non-critical explosions,” he explained. He emphasized that such tests cover all elements of nuclear weapons. They make sure systems work and can cause a nuclear explosion.
