Nuclear Notebook: Russian nuclear forces, 2024
The Federation of American Scientists has released its annual estimate of the size and makeup of Russia’s nuclear forces. The total number of nuclear warheads are now estimated to include 4,380 stockpiled warheads for operational forces, as well as an additional 1,200 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement, for a total inventory of 5,580 warheads.
Despite modernization of Russian nuclear forces and warnings about an increase of especially shorter-range non-strategic warheads, we do not yet see such an increase as far as open sources indicate. For now, the number of non-strategic warheads appears to be relatively stable with slight fluctuations. Although our new estimate of this category is lower than last year, that is not because of an actual decrease in the force level but because we have finetuned assumptions about the number of warheads assigned to Russian non-strategic nuclear forces. Our new estimate of roughly 1,558 non-strategic warheads is well within the range of 1,000-2,000 warheads estimated by the U.S. Intelligence Community for the past several years.
While Russia’s nuclear statements and threatening rhetoric are of great concern, Russia’s nuclear arsenal and operations have changed little since our 2023 estimates beyond the ongoing modernization. In the future, however, the number of warheads assigned to Russian strategic forces may increase as single-warhead missiles are replaced with missiles equipped with multiple warheads. If the New START treaty is not replaced with a new agreement, both Russia and the United States could potentially increase the number of deployed warheads.
Also in the Nuclear Notebook: Russian nuclear forces, 2024, is our latest analysis on Russian force modernization and strategy:
- Russian nuclear force modernization, intended to replace Soviet-era missiles, aircrafts, and submarines with new systems, continues at a steady pace.
- Modernization of road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles is essentially complete with focus shifting to modernizing silo-based missiles.
- New strategic and non-strategic submarines continue to replace Soviet-era models but with enhanced nuclear weapon systems.
- Upgrades and some reproduction of Soviet-era strategic bombers continue with new long-range cruise missiles.
- News leaks seem to indicate that Russia might be developing a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon which, if deployed in the future, would violate the Outer Space Treaty.
- Upgrades of nuclear weapons storage facilities are underway at several bases to accommodate the weapons for modernized forces.
- Because Russian conventional forces have been significantly depleted and their effectiveness questioned by the war in Ukraine, nuclear forces will likely be seen as important to compensate for that weakness.
The FAS Nuclear Notebook, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is widely considered the most accurate public source for information on global nuclear arsenals for all nine nuclear-armed states.
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