Russia warns of 'domino effect' if US resumes nuclear tests as President Donald Trump has announced
Russian diplomat Ghennadi Gatilov (center), PHOTO: Fatih Erel / AFP / Profimedia Images
Moscow warned on Tuesday of a dangerous “domino effect” if the United States resumes nuclear tests in response to tests that Washington says China and Russia have carried out in secret, AFP and Agerpres report.
Addressing the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Russian Ambassador Ghennadi Gatilov criticized the announcement made in late 2025 by US President Donald Trump that the United States was preparing to resume its first nuclear tests since 1992.
“We warn that the withdrawal of the United States from its national moratorium would cause a domino effect,” the Russian diplomat said, stressing that “responsibility for the consequences would rest entirely with Washington.”
His comments come after Christopher Yeaw, US assistant secretary of state for arms control and non-proliferation, said last week that Trump meant it when he said in October that the United States would resume nuclear testing.
“As the president has said, the United States will resume testing — quote — 'on an equal footing,'” Yeaw said at the Hudson Institute.
He insisted that this “does not mean a return to Ivy Mike-type atmospheric tests with multi-megaton yields,” referring to the massive 1952 thermonuclear explosion in the South Pacific.
“However, equality presupposes a response to a prior criterion. And it is enough to look at China or Russia to establish that criterion,” Yeaw added.
The US insists that Beijing has conducted secret nuclear tests
Ahead of the Conference on Disarmament, Yeaw reiterated US accusations of China's secret nuclear tests. He gave more details about a low-power test that Washington said Beijing would undertake in 2020, and accused China of preparing other, higher-power tests.
On the occasion of the Geneva conference, the US official mentioned that the data collected by Kazakhstan, a country neighboring China, would show that it carried out a “ten-ton” underground test on June 22, 2020, at 09.18 GMT.
“China has planned to conduct tests with a power of several hundred tons,” a senior State Department official said in Geneva on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The US also accuses Russia of secretly conducting low-power tests.
“If the world is worried about the kind of tests the United States will conduct, they should be even more worried about the groundwork already laid by Russia and China,” the same official said. Both countries deny the US allegations.
On Tuesday, Russian Ambassador Gatilov warned that the US position adds to the challenges facing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), a United Nations treaty aimed at banning all nuclear explosions but which has not entered into force.
To date, France and Britain are the only nuclear-weapon states to have ratified it.
