Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has visited the Arctic island notorious for nuclear testing amid fears the Kremlin is set to defy the West by resuming military atomic tests.
Shoigu's trip to Novaya Zemlya, a remote Arctic archipelago, comes amid huge war games by Vladimir Putin's Northern Fleet involving 20 naval ships and more than 8,000 troops.
It's the first time the defence minister has visited since Putin ordered that Russia is ready 'if necessary' to conduct new nuclear tests for the first time since 1990 in the Soviet era.
The aggressive move fuels deep east-west tension over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, and regular Russian threats to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict.
A defence source is on the record as saying: 'The task to get ready for resuming nuclear tests that has been assigned by the Russian president will certainly be fulfilled.
'The Novozemelsky test range has always maintained its readiness for the tests.'
Shoigu 'inspected the remote Arctic garrisons of the Northern Fleet' and 'in particular, checked the organisation of official activities on Novaya Zemlya', state news agency RIA Novosti reported today.
Significantly he was accompanied by Alexey Likhachev, director-general of ROSATOM, Russia's State Nuclear Energy Corporation.
It follows reports earlier this week that Shoigu's daughter Ksenia, 32, has been forced to split up with her 'anti-war' partner Alexey Stolyarov, 33, after pressure from Putin.
Meanwhile 'a detachment of [naval] ships of the Northern Fleet went to sea to solve problems in the Arctic zone'.
Shoigu's visit followed a call from Putin's former space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin to restart banned tests at Novaya Zemlya.
'We must make sure that [the West's] buttocks begin to shake with fear,' he said.
'I would start…I would do it, and I wouldn't wait for the Americans,' he said in May.
'Conduct nuclear tests now on Novaya Zemlya.'
Vyacheslav Solovyov, scientific director of the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre said: 'There is a special program to maintain the readiness of the test site.'
Putin this week started drills in the Arctic ostensibly to protect the Northern Sea Route between Europe and Asia.
In all, the drills will involve more than 8,000 servicemen, 20 warships, submarines and logistics vessels, five aircraft, up to 50 pieces of military and special hardware of the Northern Fleet's forces, formations and military units,' said a naval source.
'The participants will test different options of exercising fleet forces command and control while tackling missions to protect the Russian Federation's sovereignty along the Northern Sea Route.'
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