Russia will respond “accordingly” if the US violates a moratorium on testing nuclear weapons, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump said he had ordered the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing, citing strategic competition with Russia and China. “That process will begin immediately” in response to “other countries’ testing programs,” he said.

When asked about the issue by journalists later in the day, Peskov noted “the statement by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, which has been repeated many times, that, of course, if someone abandons the moratorium [on nuclear testing], then Russia will act accordingly.”

“The US is a sovereign country and has every right to make sovereign decisions,” he stressed.

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