Russia’s nuclear arsenal: How big is it and who controls it?
President Vladimir Putin says Russia has struck a deal with neighboring Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.
He said on Saturday that the agreement does not violate non-proliferation agreements.
The following are details about Russia’s nuclear arsenal, how big it is and who commands it.
Nuclear superpower
Russia, which inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union, has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear warheads.
Putin controls about 5,977 such warheads as of 2022, compared to 5,428 controlled by US President Joe Biden, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
An estimated 1,500 of those warheads have been decommissioned (but probably still intact), 2,889 are in reserve, and 1,588 are strategic warheads.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said 812 are deployed on land-based ballistic missiles, 576 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and about 200 on heavy bomber bases.
The US has deployed 1,644 strategic nuclear warheads.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, China has a total of 350 nuclear warheads, France 290 and the United Kingdom 225.
Such numbers mean that both Moscow and Washington could destroy the world many times over.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s arsenal peaked at about 40,000 warheads, while the U.S. peak was about 30,000 warheads.
The key, however, is how to deliver the weapon: the missiles, submarines and bombers that carry the warheads.
Russia appears to have about 400 nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated could carry up to 1,185 nuclear warheads.
Russia operates 10 nuclear-powered submarines, which can carry up to 800 nuclear warheads. It has 60 to 70 nuclear bombers.
Newer nuclear weapons
The US said in its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review that Russia and China were expanding and modernizing their nuclear forces and that Washington would pursue an arms control-based approach to avoid costly arms races.
Putin said he had information that the US was developing new types of nuclear weapons.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only a few countries have tested nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association: the US last in 1992, China and France last in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998, and North Korea before the last in 2017.
The Soviet Union last tested in 1990.
Who is allowed to give Russian launch orders?
The Russian president is the ultimate decision maker when it comes to the use of Russian nuclear weapons, both strategic and non-strategic, according to Russian nuclear doctrine.
The so-called nuclear briefcase, or “Cheget” (named after Mount Cheget in the Caucasus Mountains), is always with the president.
Russia’s Defense Minister, currently Sergey Shoigu, and Chief of the General Staff, now Valery Gerasimov, are also said to have such briefcases.
Essentially, the briefcase is a communications tool that connects the president to his top military and then to missile forces through the top-secret “Kazbek” electronic command and control network. Kazbek supports another system known as “Kavkaz”.
Footage shown by Russian television channel Zvezda in 2019 showed it to be one of the suitcases with a series of buttons.
In a section called “command” there are two buttons: a white “start” button and a red “cancel” button. The briefcase is activated by a special flashcard, according to Zvezda.
If Russia thought it was facing a strategic nuclear strike, the president would send a direct launch order through the briefcases to the General Staff command and reserve command units, containing the nuclear codes.
Such orders quickly flow through various communication systems to strategic missile units, which would then fire on the targets.
As a last resort, if a nuclear strike were confirmed, Putin could activate the so-called “Dead Hand” or “Perimetr” system. Essentially, computers would decide doomsday. A control missile would order nuclear strikes from Russia’s vast arsenal.