Putin and Trump are now playing at nuclear threats.

MoscowVladimir Putin is frustrated because his display of nuclear potential has not intimidated Donald Trump. Russian displays of the Burevestnik missile The events surrounding the Poseidon submarine have not gone unnoticed in Washington, but the reaction has not been what was expected. The US president has not only failed to rush to Moscow to implore measures to halt the escalation, as the Kremlin intends, but has also tested his own nuclear-capable missile, the Minuteman III, and has continued to complicate matters regarding the possibility of conducting nuclear explosion tests. On Wednesday, the Russian president convened an extraordinary Security Council meeting and staged a scene designed for a single spectator: the occupant of the White House. The meeting was supposedly to address transportation issues, but Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin theatrically interrupted, deviating from the agenda to express concern about Trump's announcement to resume nuclear testing after more than three decades. Putin agreed that it was a "serious" matter and gave the floor to the other participants. The most vehement was Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, who warned of "Washington's active buildup of strategic offensive weapons" and asserted that the United States is working on a hypersonic missile system capable of reaching the center of Russia in six or seven minutes. He concluded, "It is advisable to begin preparations for large-scale nuclear tests immediately."

Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerassimov also criticized the lack of clarity in Trump's statements regarding nuclear tests, saying they "provide no reason to believe they will not be carried out in the near future." He added, "If we do not take appropriate measures now, we will lose the opportunity and the time to respond effectively."

Preparations for nuclear tests

The Russian president accepted the challenge, but put a stop to it. He limited himself to asking his government for "proposals" on how to prepare for nuclear tests, while waiting for clarity on the US position, and insisted: "If the United States were to conduct these tests, Russia would be forced to take appropriate reciprocal measures." In other words, despite the threat, the Kremlin has no intention of carrying out atomic explosions if the White House does not take the first step.

This Thursday, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov complained that there "has been no official reaction" from the US at the Security Council meeting or regarding the launches of Burevestnik and Poseidon. It has been a month and a half since Putin's offer to Trump to extend the New START Treaty, which limits the number of nuclear weapons each country possesses, but in Washington does not appear willing to discuss it until progress is made in resolving the war in Ukraine.

Analyst Vladimir Frolov suggests that Russia is using Trump's "loose language" on nuclear tests to "impose the imperative of a direct agreement with the United States on strategic issues." In other words, Putin wants to negotiate with the US president outside the context of the Ukrainian conflict. Frolov believes that "it could work for him," but so far the signals from the White House are not reassuring for the Kremlin.

As nuclear weapons expert Andrei Baklitsky points out, the current arms race, which both countries deny, is not motivated by any specific need, but by an "action-reaction cycle." Moreover, it is occurring at a time of rapprochement between the two powers and, therefore, despite the coolness of recent weeks after the failure of the Budapest summit, it is part of the diplomatic game.

Now, while for Putin the obsession with national security and nuclear deterrence stems from an existential anxiety, for Trump it appears as yet another element of the bluster with which he typically addresses geopolitical issues. Escalation is a way of demonstrating to the rest of the world that the United States is the most powerful country and, as he asserts, the one that It possesses the world's largest atomic arsenal, although this is false. And, in reality, Russia has more atomic weapons than anyone else.