The United States conducted an underground explosion at a nuclear testing site in Nevada, only days after Russian parliament ratified the country’s exit from an international treaty prohibiting all nuclear tests.
The Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) experiment on Wednesday included “chemical high-explosives and radiotracers,” according to a statement from the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
“These experiments advance our efforts to develop new technology in support of US nuclear nonproliferation goals,” NNSA deputy administrator for defence nuclear nonproliferation Corey Hinderstein said. “They will help reduce global nuclear threats by improving the detection of underground nuclear explosive tests.”
Several US laboratories collected data using various types of sensors, which will “help validate new predictive explosion models and detection algorithms,” the press release added.
The US experiment occurred mere hours after the Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, voted a measure withdrawing ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996. The action is intended to bring the country up to speed with the United States, which did not ratify the international accord.
The Russian representative to the UN in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, restated Moscow’s intention to keeping an unofficial ban on testing once the CTBT withdrawal is finalised, unless pushed to do so.
“Never, ever say never.” Tests may be resumed under certain conditions. “I believe such a development would be detrimental to the modern world’s stability,” he stated in an interview with Russian media. “We have enough turbulence in international relations without adding to it.”
