ExplainerRussia’s nuclear arsenal: how big and who controls it?
- Russia has stepped back from a key arms control treaty with the United States
- Russia has an estimated 5,977 nuclear warheads, the world’s biggest store
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What is Russia’s nuclear arsenal, how big is it and who commands it?
Nuclear superpower
Russia, which inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons, has the world’s biggest store of nuclear warheads.
Putin controls around 5,977 such warheads as of 2022, compared to 5,428 controlled by US President Joe Biden, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Around 1,500 of those warheads are retired (but probably still intact), 2889 are in reserve and around 1,588 are deployed strategic warheads.
About 812 are deployed on land-based ballistic missiles, about 576 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and around 200 at heavy bomber bases, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.