15:24, 2 November 2023

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on Russia's withdrawal from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the country signed in 1996 and ratified in 2000, TASS news agency reports.

The document was supposed to become the main international legal instrument for stopping any kind of nuclear testing. To date, however, the treaty has not entered into force because it has not been ratified by 8 of the 44 "Annex 2 states" – states that participated in the CTBT's negotiations between 1994 and 1996 and possessed nuclear power reactors or research reactors at that time.

Russia’s withdrawal is designed to restore parity in nuclear arms control commitments, according to TASS. It is specified that the document creates a legal basis for Russia to withdraw its instrument of ratification, but does not imply the country's withdrawal from the CTBT.

The Kremlin said earlier that the withdrawal of ratification of the treaty equalizes the situation in the field of nuclear testing for Moscow and Washington, which never ratified the document. The Kremlin said that the withdrawal of the CTBT ratification does not mean that Russia plans to conduct nuclear tests.