Russia warning as Vladimir Putin close to first nuclear bomb tests for 35 years

Russia is getting closer to renewing nuclear bomb tests for the first time in 35 years, a Moscow security expert has warned.

Military specialist Dmitry Stefanovich is the latest to signal that Vladimir Putin could soon sanction the restart. It is claimed the former Soviet Arctic test site in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago is ready - should the dictator give the order.

The last confirmed tests in North Korea were in September 2017 and it is understood that leading pro-war Russian politicians have inspected the test site. Now the world waits to see if the Russian president gives the green light.

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“We are closer to this situation than at any point since North Korea’s last nuclear tests,” said Stefanovich, of the Russian Centre for International Security, and a member of the Russian Academy of Science.

Lieutenant general Andrey Gurulev posted from the location: “You know, there’s a lot of fascinating stuff I could say about the test site – but sadly, I cannot. The only thing I can say is – we’re fully combat ready.”

Some hardliners are urging Putin to conduct a new test in the clearest warning to the West that he will not compromise over Ukraine. The director of the facility, Rear-Admiral Andrei Sinitsyn, said the site was ready for a new nuclear test.

“The test site is ready to resume full-scale testing activities,” he said. "It is fully ready. The laboratory and testing facilities are ready. The personnel are ready. If the order is given, we will begin testing at any moment.”

Stefanovich said pressure would come for tests from new experts set to secure positions in Russia’s nuclear weapons complex. “Once a new generation takes over in leadership positions within nuclear weapons complexes, these discussions will intensify,” he said He argued there was no technical reason for fresh tests.

“We have the technology and extremely expensive machines that allow us to verify the warheads without live tests,” he said. "I fear that within the next 10 or 15 years it will be the technical arguments that dominate.”

Novaya Zemlya is notorious for its role as a Soviet nuclear test site in the Cold War. The Tsar Bomb - the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated - was tested there on October 30, 1961.

The explosion was so large it caused shockwaves that circled the Earth multiple times, and its mushroom cloud reached more than 37 miles into the sky.

A total of 130 nuclear tests were conducted on Novaya Zemlya by the Soviet Union between 1955 and 1990. Of these, 86 were atmospheric, 39 underground and three underwater, according to declassified documents.