The Russian military has started upgrading nuclear weapons bunkers at Engels Air Base and the Saratov-63 central nuclear weapons storage facility in Saratov province. At Engels Air Base, satellite images show one of two bunkers in the weapons storage area has been exposed as part of apparent maintenance of the base’s nuclear weapons mission. The […]
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By Hans M. Kristensen [Updated Jan 31, 2019] Earlier this month, the Chinese government outlet Global Times published a report that a People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) unit with the new DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile had carried out an exercise in the “Northwest China’s plateau and desert areas.” The article made vague references to a […]
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President Trump personally released the long-overdue Missile Defense Review today, and despite the document’s assertion that “Missile Defenses are Stabilizing,” the MDR promotes a posture that is anything but.
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Israel has deleted several military facilities from its official map by replacing them with fake farms, deserts, or paint splotches.
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A Russian mapping service has selectively obscured political and military facilities in both Israel and Turkey, which has had the unintended effect of revealing their exact locations to the world.
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Amid a busy few weeks of nuclear-related news, an Israeli researcher made a very surprising OSINT discovery that flew somewhat under the radar.
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By Hans M. Kristensen NNSA has published the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan for Fiscal Year 2019, which updates the agency’s work on producing and maintaining the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads. The latest plan follows the broad outlines of last year’s plan but contains important changes. The new plan shows significant cost increases and […]
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By Hans M. Kristensen The latest New START treaty aggregate numbers published by the State Department earlier today show a slight increase in U.S. deployed strategic forces and a slight decrease in Russian deployed strategic forces over the past six months. The data shows that the United States and Russia as of September 1, 2018 […]
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By Hans M. Kristensen New satellite photos show substantial upgrades of ICBM silos at the missile field near Kozelsk in western Russia. The images show that progress is well underway on at least half of the silos (possibly more) of the second regiment of the 28th Guards Missile Division from the Soviet-era SS-19 ICBM to […]
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By Hans M. Kristensen, Robert S. Norris, and Julia Diamond The latest FAS Nuclear Notebook has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Pakistani nuclear forces, 2018 (direct link to PDF). We estimate that Pakistan by now has accumulated an arsenal of 140-150 nuclear warheads for delivery by short- and medium-range ballistic and […]
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