Russia has increased its overall military nuclear stockpile by around 180 warheads, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute stated in SIPRI Yearbook 2021, which assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security.
Despite this overall decrease, the estimated number of nuclear weapons currently deployed with operational forces increased to 3825, from 3720 last year. Around 2000 of these — nearly all of which belonged to Russia or the USA — were kept in a state of high operational alert.
While the USA and Russia continued to reduce their overall nuclear weapon inventories by dismantling retired warheads in 2020, both are estimated to have had around 50 more nuclear warheads in operational deployment at the start of 2021 than a year earlier.
“Russia also increased its overall military nuclear stockpile by around 180 warheads, mainly due to the deployment of more multi-warhead land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs),” the document notes.
As the report stressed, at the same time, the deployed strategic nuclear forces remained within the limits set by the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START), although the treaty does not limit total nuclear warhead inventories.
“The overall number of warheads in global military stockpiles now appears to be increasing, a worrisome sign that the declining trend that has characterized global nuclear arsenals since the end of the cold war have stalled,’ said Hans M. Kristensen, Associate Senior Fellow with SIPRI’s Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-proliferation Programme and Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). “The last-minute extension of New START by Russia and the USA in February this year was a relief, but the prospects for additional bilateral nuclear arms control between the nuclear superpowers remains poor.”