US must show evidence if it wants to claim Russia breached nuke test treaty – Moscow

If the United States accuses Russia of violating a crucial nuclear test treaty, there should be robust evidence backing up those claims, the Russian Foreign Ministry official has said.

Washington on Thursday “assessed that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons tests,” Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted. “This allegation was earlier disregarded by CTBTO Prepcom on the basis of data of international monitoring system. Interesting: 2 weeks ago US said ‘probably.’ Now it’s affirmative. Did the US get new evidence?,” he wrote.

Last month, Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr, the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, claimed that the US believes Russia has “probably” restarted low-yield nuclear tests, in violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Ashley alleged that Russia may be developing tactical nuclear weapons for use on conventional battlefields. However, he later softened the tone and said that Russia only “has the capability” to conduct a test with a low nuclear yield.