More Nuclear Saber Rattling – Russia’s Novaya Zemlya Test Site ‘Ready to Go’

In a report from the Russian State news site Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Andrei Sinitsyn, head of Russia’s Novaya Zemlya Central Nuclear Test Site said all was in readiness for a possible resumption of nuclear weapons tests.

“The testing ground is ready to resume full-scale testing activities. Everything is ready – the lab facilities, the personnel. If we receive the command, we can start testing at any time,” Sinitsyn said.

It’s been almost 70 years to the day since the Novaya Zemlya test site, located on the Severny Island in northern Russia within the Arctic Circle, carried out its first megaton-class nuclear weapons test – Friday, Sept. 17, 1954. Over the following 36 years, the USSR carried out more than 700 nuclear detonations.

The USSR’s final tests were carried out at Kazakhstan’s Semipalatinsk site on Oct. 19, 1989, and at Novaya Zemlya on Oct. 24, 1990. The USSR then unilaterally halted nuclear weapons testing but, in true Soviet/Russian fashion, the site has been maintained, ready to resume operations at any time for more than 30 years.

According to Sinitsyn, the testing base and personnel can begin testing at any time if the appropriate command is received.

On Sept. 24, 1996, Russia signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and ratified it on May 27, 2000. However, in November last year, Moscow withdrew that ratification, which Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the Russian Duma, said was essential to “balance” relations with the US refusal to ratify the treaty.

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In August of this year, the head of the special control service of the Russian Defense Ministry, Viktor Korshak, stated that Russia, despite its withdrawal of ratification of the CTBT, had strengthened its oversight of nuclear test facilities.

Recent open-source satellite imagery produced by PlanetLab shows increased activity at the Novaya Zemlya test site. This includes new construction of tunnels and roads, and increased vehicle traffic which could indicate preparations for further nuclear tests, or at least the suggestion of an intent to do so as another signal to the west.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has hinted at a preparedness to resume nuclear testing “if necessary,” with disquieting suggestions by several of Moscow’s politicians, military leaders, and propagandists that Russia should resume testing to prove Russia’s power and preparedness to use its nuclear weapons to the West.

In October last year Margarita Simonyan, head of RT, suggested detonating a thermonuclear bomb somewhere in Siberia to demonstrate the destructiveness of its arsenal – remarks that didn’t go down too well with the region’s leaders and residents. It led Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov to state that Simonyan’s views “do not represent the official stance of the government.”

On Sept. 16, the State Duma proposed conducting demonstration nuclear tests against the backdrop of the possible lifting of the ban on Kyiv launching strikes deep into Russia, while the head of Rosatom warned that Ukraine’s behavior in Kursk “threatens [global] peace.”