Rather, the Russians will grow new limbs. Why is Putin withdrawing Russia from the CTBT

In fact, Putin and his entourage, as always, shift the responsibility for Russia's conscious irresponsibility to others, пишет Vladyslav Girman, an observer of the international policy department of "DS".

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, during his boring three-hour speech in Sochi at the meeting of the Valdai club, again tried to raise the stakes in the confrontation with the USA and Europe: in conjunction with the confirmation of the test of the Burevestnik missile, he announced the withdrawal of the ratification of the Russian Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. And he expressed an "assumption" (and Putin's assumptions in Russia are indications) that this issue should be considered by legislators.

The next day, the head of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Vyacheslav Volodin, took a visor and promised in his Telegram channel that at the next meeting of the Russian Parliament, he would discuss the withdrawal of the ratification, since this all corresponds to the interests of Russia, etc.

Putin's argument for withdrawing from the CTBT, copied by Volodin (that is, it is a clearly planned campaign), is as follows: why should we adhere to it, if the USA has not ratified it. This, they say, is the Kremlin's mirror response to Washington.

In fact, Putin and his entourage, as always, shift responsibility for Russia's conscious irresponsibility to others.

The United States did not actually ratify this treaty. However, they are not the only ones.

But first, it is still worth diving a little into the history of the adoption of this international agreement.

A journey lasting 50 years

The process began immediately after the Second World War with the initiative of Great Britain and Canada to ensure control over nuclear weapons. Harry Truman's administration also joined the initiative, which in 1946 proposed to create an appropriate international system of control over the production of atomic energy ("the Baruch plan" - it was Truman's advisor Bernard Baruch who made such a proposal to the world) in the form of an appropriate international system.

However, Joseph Stalin's paranoid USSR rejected the proposal, because he considered it, on the contrary, aimed at strengthening the nuclear potential of the United States.

The parties "were mired" in negotiations, meanwhile nuclear weapons tests continued. In particular, by 1963, 499 of them had been conducted (219 — the USSR, 215 — the USA), which caused increasing public concern over nuclear pollution both under water and in the atmosphere.

Khrushchev thaw contributed to the beginning of a new round of negotiations in 1955 with the participation of the States, Britain and the Union. Actually, it was on Nikita Khrushchev's initiative that they began and ended in 1963 with the adoption of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was later joined by 123 states.

Although, again, the negotiations were not easy, since the West feared that Moscow would still find a way to secretly circumvent the norms of this treaty and conduct tests. That is, the issue of detection and control systems has become more acute. It is clear that the technical means available at that time did not provide the opportunities that are provided by today's technologies. Therefore, it was about inspections, which Moscow, of course, considered as a means of conducting espionage operations by the Americans and British on the territory of the USSR.

Nevertheless, the treaty was concluded, but peace did not wait for the complete ban then. Although he waited for a real decrease in the level of air pollution. At the same time, this does not indicate a significant decrease in the number of nuclear weapons tests. In fact, in the 10 years after the conclusion of the CTBT, even more of them were held than in the period from 1945 to 1963. — 436. The parties banally "went underground."

Subsequently, several more steps were taken towards a complete ban on nuclear tests through the Test Ban Treaty (forbidden underground tests of nuclear weapons with a capacity of more than 150 kilotons) and the Treaty on Peaceful Nuclear Explosions.

At the same time, in 1968, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was also adopted, but it was boycotted by some countries (India, Pakistan, Israel), arguing that it was discriminatory on the part of nuclear states in relation to non-nuclear ones.

Similar statements were made in the 90s, when the process intensified after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR. New negotiations within the framework of the UN General Assembly began in 1993. The goal is a comprehensive test ban. And already on September 10, 1996, the UN General Assembly adopted the CTBT, and on September 24, 71 states, including the USA and Russia, signed it in New York. As of 2023, the number of signatories is 182 countries. India, North Korea and Pakistan have not yet signed. In addition to the USA, China, Egypt, Iran and Israel also did not ratify.

Watchful eye

However, here is another interesting nuance: according to the provision of Annex 2 to the CTBT, it will enter into force 180 days after the ratification of the document by 44 states from this annex - states that participated in the negotiations between 1994 and 1996.

In other words, the CTBT has not yet entered into force. However, signatory and ratifying countries still adhere to the provisions of the document.

Of course, like any other similar treaty of the CTBT, it could not be based only on the good will and virtue of the participants, so the parties still focused on creating a truly effective monitoring and control system. And in contrast to the middle of the last century at the time of the adoption of the CTBT, and even more so today, technological development made it possible to form such a monitoring system.

In total, over the past years, 337 monitoring stations were created in 89 countries, in the functioning of which geophysical, seismological, hydroacoustic, infrasound, and radionuclide monitoring tools are used. This whole system is capable of monitoring nuclear tests under water, on land and in the air. And it recorded a number of nuclear weapons tests by India, Pakistan, and the DPRK in the period from 1998 to 2017.

The heart and brain of the whole system is Vena. It is in the Austrian capital that the office of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) with an annual budget of $130 million and 230 employees is located.

Interestingly, although the United States has not ratified the CTBT, it is the largest donor to the CTBTO — it allocates about $17 million annually to its work.

Washington's caution

And now about why the United States did not ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Especially considering their considerable efforts to achieve this during half a century.

There were attempts. And even after Congress refused to ratify the CTBT in 1999, US President Barack Obama tried to achieve this in 2009, as part of the policy of "resetting" relations with Russia, but failed. His initiative did not receive sufficient support.

And the reasons are really quite prosaic.

First, the USA observes the terms of the treaty even without ratification.

Secondly, not all countries agreed to even sign this treaty. And two of these countries — Iran and North Korea — are among those that regularly threaten to destroy the United States.

Therefore, the States refused both in 1999 and in the 2000s to ratify the CTBT, fearing that in this way they would personally bind themselves with obligations that hostile actors do not even intend to assume. That is, while the ban on nuclear tests would work in the United States, the DPRK and Iran would have the opportunity to further create and develop their nuclear potential. And we note, not without the help of the same Russia.

In addition, the CTBT, although it did not enter into force, still worked thanks to the political will strengthened by the global monitoring system.

Therefore, Putin's statement about the withdrawal of ratification is, in principle, a cheap signal to the West. In the context of the permanent blackmail of the USA and Europe since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin withdraws from various international treaties related to weapons and armed forces.

On February 28, 2023, Russia suspended its participation in the Treaty on the Reduction of Strategic Offensive Weapons (NPT or START-III).

On May 29, 2023, Russia withdrew from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which regulated the number of tanks, anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, and aviation in Europe.

Finally, it was the turn of the CSTO. Obviously, Russia will not hesitate to make a corresponding decision. As in the case of the First Nations Treaty and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the formalities — the procedures in both chambers of the parliament — will probably take about two weeks.

At the same time, the hypothetical resumption of nuclear weapons tests by Moscow still has little prospects from the point of view of a radical change in the policy of the United States or Europe. Because this is, first of all, another attempt to intimidate our allies with the last, in the opinion of the Kremlin, effective means. Therefore, the withdrawal of ratification will most likely have consequences directly for the Russians if the regime implements Margarita Simonyan's idiotic proposal to detonate nuclear weapons in the sky over Siberia.

Read also on Newsky "Putin on Valdae. What did the carpenter of the fourth category set up" and look at Boring Pence YouTube channel.

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