Russia's parliament took the first step on Tuesday towards revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and its top lawmaker hinted it might go further by abandoning the pact altogether.

Russia’s parliament took the first step on Tuesday towards revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and its top lawmaker hinted it might go further by abandoning the pact altogether.

Parliament’s lower house, the Duma, voted by 412 to zero, with no abstentions, to approve the withdrawal of the ratification in the first of three readings.

Russia says the aim is to restore parity with the United States, which has signed but never ratified the 1996 treaty, and that it will not resume testing unless Washington does.

But arms control experts are concerned that Russia may be inching towards a test that would be perceived as a threatening signal by the West at a time of heightened confrontation over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

  • @qooqie@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34•1 year ago

    Can we just fucking stop for one minute? Total destruction accomplishes what? It’s mind boggling how absolutely selfish and childish some adults and mostly politicians act. Really depressing actually, feels like a constant battle everywhere against these sorts of people.

    • @noobdoomguy8658@feddit.deEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      You shouldn’t really assume that the Russian government is up to anything aside from imitating some activity to present the their superiors, which is all a long chain going from the very down to the very top.

      It’s a corrupt government that consists of people only aiming at filling their pockets with as much money as possible, for as long as possible. Sometimes they need to play along and make people (mostly their gone-mad old-aged marasmatic superiors) believe they’re loyal, should be allowed to keep their money and pay, and are super busy.

      There is no ideology. There is no long-term goal. There isn’t even an evil goal. There’s only greed and some things that they think they must do to keep their pockets growing.

    • KalashEnglish
      -2•1 year ago

      What total destruction? This is meaningless political posturing.

    • The Snark UrgeEnglish
      -6•1 year ago

      The difference between Russians and Americans has always been that we have used them before, for no reason (Nagasaki) and many presidents since then would love to have a go. Trump wanted to nuke some bad weather, once.

      They believe it is all a head game, so they’re good at the game aspect of it. But they are atheists, and so fall short in the “crazy enough to really do it” side of things. Most of us believe in an afterlife, much to my chagrin; in pure game theory terms for MAD, that’s an edge.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    5•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    MOSCOW, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Russia is revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty because of the irresponsible attitude of the United States to global security, the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament said on Tuesday.

    “The Russian Federation will do everything to protect its citizens and to maintain global strategic parity,” Volodin said.

    Russian officials say that the revocation of ratification does not mean Russia is going to test a nuclear bomb and that it is simply coming into line with the U.S. position, though arms control experts are concerned Russia could be inching towards a resumption of nuclear testing.

    But the Ukraine war has raised tensions between Moscow and Washington to the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis just as China seeks to bolster its nuclear arsenal to accord with its status as an emerging superpower.

    A bipartisan panel appointed by the U.S. Congress said on Thursday that Washington must prepare for possible simultaneous wars with Moscow and Beijing by expanding its conventional forces, strengthening alliances and enhancing its nuclear weapons modernization programme.

    Putin has dismissed that talk as nonsense and has said that he sees no need to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine - a document that outlines that Russia would only order a strike with nuclear weapons if it was attacked, or if the existence of the state was endangered by an attack with conventional weapons.

    The original article contains 601 words, the summary contains 236 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!