It became known that the Kremlin plans to resume testing nuclear weapons, in particular, test sites are already being prepared in Novaya Zemlya and other territories of the Russian North. Indirectly, the start of preparations has already taken place, for example, in some regions of Kamchatka, local residents are prohibited from moving to the sparsely populated north of the peninsula. In the Kremlin, they think of Soviet clichés and hope that threats of nuclear weapons will force the West to abandon its support for Ukraine. In this respect, Russia’s course towards the escalation of nuclear threats is terror and a return to the era of bloc confrontation.
Russian military analyst V. Prokhvatilov explains the resumption of nuclear testing in the Russian Federation by the need to test the technical condition of the existing nuclear arsenal. This is the official version that was released to the public. In fact, Putin is returning to traditional nuclear blackmail, only with significantly increased stakes: if in the summer-autumn of 2022 the Russians shelled the vicinity of the ZNPP, accusing Ukraine of this and trying to obtain political concessions, now the Kremlin has gone all-in and is actively returning to the era of bloc confrontation. A parallel can be drawn with the infamous «Caribbean Crisis» of 1962, during which the USSR led by M. Khrushchev almost brought the world to a nuclear collision thanks to the geopolitical ambitions of the Secretary General. Putin’s psychology is very similar to the psychology of Soviet gerontocrats, he lives in illusions of the past and cannot realize that the world has already changed. In Putin’s perception, forceful terror, nuclear blackmail and threats are an effective tool of influence, although against the background of the asymmetrical weakness of the Russian army, which was distinguished only by looting, killing civilians and mindless destruction, the Kremlin’s attempts to terrify the world with nukes only add to Russia’s antagonism and isolation. On the other hand, the nuclear «triad» is the only truly effective weapon that Putin has at his disposal, and it is likely that as the strategic impasse for his troops on the front and the general catastrophic nature of the war unleashed by him increase, Putin will only intensify nuclear blackmail. Without a doubt, Russia’s resumption of nuclear tests will set an example for similar actions to other countries that have or plan to obtain nuclear weapons, with a special emphasis on Iran. The Kremlin is helping Tehran in every possible way in its nuclear quest, and this is an unprecedented threat to humanity. The uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons will inevitably lead to its falling into the hands of terrorists, and then the risks and threats to the world community will increase significantly. Russia’s actions are direct terror and destabilization at the global level, the Russian Federation should be recognized as a terrorist state, which has actually formed a pool of «geopolitical antagonists» and should be completely isolated.