'We are ready': Novaya Zemlya range ground ready to resume nuclear tests

The Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site is ready to resume nuclear tests if need be, Vyacheslav Solovyov, scientific director of the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) said.

"We are ready," the director said adding that there was a special program to maintain the readiness of the nuclear test site. 

The test site on Novaya Zemlya (the site is in the jurisdiction of the Russian Ministry of Defense) conducted 130 atmospheric, underwater and underground tests from 1955 to 1990.

• Novaya Zemlya is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe.
• Novaya Zemlya was a sensitive military area during the Cold War.
• Parts of the archipelago are still used for airfields today.
• Novaya Zemlya was one of the two major nuclear test sites of the USSR.
• It was used for air and underground testing of the largest of Soviet nuclear bombs, such as the Tsar Bomba - the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.