Abstract
As of mid-2002, Russia was believed to have an arsenal of approximately 8,400 operational nuclear warheads: almost 5,000 deployed on strategic nuclear weapons systems, and nearly 3,400 non-strategic and air defense warheads. This reflects a decrease over the past year of more than 600 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads, and approximately 200 operational non-strategic nuclear weapons.
We estimate the actual number of Russian warheads to be around 18,000. The remainder are non-strategic and strategic weapons kept in storage—some destined for dismantlement, others possibly kept as a reserve for re-deployment.
December 2001 was the START I Treaty deadline for Russia to meet the accountable-warhead level of 6,000. It has surpassed that goal: According to the State Department, approximately 5,520 warheads are attributed to deployed Russian ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers.
In 2000, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was interested in reducing strategic warheads to 1,500 or fewer. In May 2002, Presidents Putin and George W. Bush agreed to reduce the number of “operationally deployed” warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the end of 2012. It is likely that Russia's strategic forces will decline to those levels—or below—even earlier, because it is shifting resources from nuclear to conventional forces. Last June, the Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF), long the lead service of Soviet and Russian armed forces, was downgraded to a branch of the armed forces. There were further indications that SRF troops might be subordinated to the air force.
Non-strategic forces
An additional 8,000–10,000 non-operational strategic and non-strategic warheads may be in reserve or awaiting dismantlement.
Russia has exceeded this obligation. Sixty SS-18s have been removed from service, leaving 144: 52 at Dom-barovskiy, 46 at Kartaly, and 46 at Uzhur. After 37 years of service, on April 27, 2001, the Strategic Missile Troops Division at Aleysk was disbanded, and its 30 silos were destroyed. The missiles in Kazakhstan and their warheads were shipped back to Russia by April 1995.
The START II Treaty banned all MIRVed (multiple independently tar-getable reentry vehicles) heavy ICBMs. But because the treaty never entered into force, and the new, more laissez-faire agreement of May 2002 has superceded it, Russia may retain its MIRVed SS-18s, although the missiles are unlikely to remain in service indefinitely due to their limited service life.
Two variants of the SS-18 are currently deployed: the older RS-20B and the newer RS-20V. While START counts all SS-18s as carrying 10 warheads, the RS-20B can carry a single warhead, and a few of these may be deployed. The range of a fully MIRVed SS-18 is 11,000 kilometers; the single-warhead missile has a range of 15,000 kilometers. The yield of warheads on the RS-20B is estimated at 500-550 kilotons, and on the RS-20V, 550-750 kilotons.
Strategic forces
In 1998, the SRF hoped to deploy 20-30 new SS-27s per year over the next three years and 30-40 per year for three years after that, but deployments have fallen far short of this schedule. Six SS-27s may be deployed this year. By the end of 2005, it is likely that 50-60 SS-27s will have been deployed—considerably fewer than the 160-220 previously anticipated.
Operational SSBNs in the Northern Fleet are based on the Kola Peninsula (at Nerpichya and Yagel-naya) and in the Pacific Fleet (at Rybachiy, 15 kilometers southwest of Petropavlovsk) on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The keel of the first new Borey-class SSBN was laid in November 1996. However, construction has been intermittent and was suspended altogether in 1998 while the submarine was being redesigned to accommodate a new SLBM. The Russian Navy hopes to have the first boat in commission in 2005, but it is unclear whether enough funding can be provided to finish it by then.
Economic constraints, a shrinking SSBN fleet, and safety concerns after the August 2000 Kursk sinking have led to substantial decreases in the number of SSBN patrols—as well as patrols of nuclear-powered generalpurpose submarines. According to the U.S. Navy, in 1991 there were 37 SSBN patrols; in 2001 there was one. It should be noted, however, that some SSBNs can launch their SLBMs while in port.
The MOU lists 15 Tu-160 Blackjack bombers at Engels. Eight of these were sent from Ukraine to Russia in late 1999 and early 2000 in partial payment of Ukrainian natural gas debts to Russia. The operational status of these bombers is unclear, but reports indicate that they need moderate to extensive overhaul and modernization. The Kazan Gorbunov production plant delivered one new Tu-160 to the Russian Air Force in May 2000. The Tu-160 force may increase slightly if production can be sustained. Although funds were short in 2001, three more Blackjacks are under construction, one of which may be delivered late this year or in early 2003. There are plans to modernize and extend the service lives of the older Tu-160s, according to Air Force Commander in Chief Vladimir Mikhaylov, which would allow them to carry “new types of missiles with conventional and nuclear warheads.”
Correction
The table in the May/June 2002 NRDC Nuclear Notebook contained an error. It should have said that the U.S. Minuteman III Mk-12A ICBM carries three W78 warheads, with a 335-kiloton yield each.
On February 14, 2001, two Tu-160 Blackjack bombers flew along Norway's northern border, and approximately four medium-range Tu-22 Backfire bombers flew near Japanese airspace. These exercises caused Norway to dispatch interceptor aircraft and Japan to lodge a protest over possible violation of its airspace. As part of the same exercise, two days later a Tu-95 Bear bomber launched a strategic cruise missile, and two Tu-22M Backfire bombers launched non-strategic cruise missiles. (The exercise included the previously mentioned February 2001 ICBM and SLBM launches.)
A large, Pacific-area air exercise involving Tu-160, Tu-95, and Tu-22 strategic and theater bombers was to have begun on September 10, 2001. Blackjack bombers were spotted at Anadyr, and additional U.S. and Canadian interceptors were moved to the area to monitor the exercise, but at the U.S. government's request, the Russian Defense Ministry cancelled the exercise after the September 11 terrorist attacks, to ensure that there would be no accidental incidents involving Russian aircraft flying near U.S. borders.
The navy removed non-strategic nuclear weapons from surface ships and submarines and placed them in regional or central storage sites. Nuclear weapons deployed on naval aircraft, or at front-line storage facilities servicing naval airbases, were also moved to regional or central storage sites. By 1996, one-third of the navy's non-strategic nuclear weapons were eliminated. The number of ships capable of carrying nuclear weapons has declined from about 400 in 1990 to about 100 in 2001.
One-half of the Russian Air Force's inventory of nuclear air-bombs has been eliminated, and one-half of the warheads for surface-to-air missiles were also destroyed.
All nuclear weapons are thought to have been withdrawn from the Russian Ground Forces' operational forces by 1998 and consolidated at storage sites. Although final elimination of Ground Forces nuclear weapons was expected before the end of 2001, Russia announced in April 2002 that the destruction of nuclear warheads for tactical missiles, nuclear artillery shells, and nuclear mines is still ongoing. If there is sufficient funding, Russia will eliminate all Ground Forces nuclear weapons by 2004. Russia reiterated in April what Boris Yeltsin declared in 1992: that production of nuclear warheads for ground-launched tactical missiles, nuclear artillery shells, and nuclear mines had been “completely stopped.”∗