🇷🇺 Russia Nuclear Arsenal

In 2025, Russia has a total of 5449 nuclear warheads, including 1710 deployed. They made 715 tests between 1949 and 1990.

Russia retains the world’s largest and most diverse nuclear arsenal, while accelerating qualitative upgrades across all three legs of its triad. Moscow’s suspension of New START transparency, deployment of tactical weapons to Belarus, and increasingly explicit nuclear rhetoric signal a more coercive nuclear posture than at any time since the Cold War.

Russia’s active stockpile is assessed to have roughly 1,710 nuclear warheads deployed on strategic launchers; another 1,000–2,000 assigned to non-strategic (tactical) forces, stored in central repositories but able to be mated within hours.
Modernization is well advanced—about 88 percent of strategic forces now use post-Soviet systems, with the last Topol-M units retiring and all 21 ICBM regiments re-equipped primarily with RS-24 Yars.

Cutting-edge systems are entering limited service:

• Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles on converted UR-100N (SS-19 Mod 4) silos—two regiments operational
• RS-28 Sarmat heavy ICBM declared on “pilot combat duty,” but a 2024 static-fire failure underscores ongoing schedule slippage
• Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater drones are being integrated on special-purpose submarine Belgorod, with at least 30 rounds reportedly planned

Since Russia halted New START inspections in 2023, publicly exchanged launcher/warhead data are no longer available, complicating independent verification. Parallel doctrinal revisions in late 2024 lowered the declared threshold for nuclear use and expanded scenarios to include large-scale conventional strikes on critical infrastructure.

Force structure and major vectors

Land (Strategic Rocket Forces)

• ~310 silo & road-mobile ICBMs: RS-24 Yars, RS-28 Sarmat (initial), older SS-27 Topol-M in final draw-down
• Hypersonic variant: Avangard HGV on UR-100N silos
• Tactical missiles: 9K720 Iskander-M brigades with nuclear option for 500 km SRBMs

Sea (Navy)

• 7 Borei/Borei-A SSBNs (Dmitriy Donskoy class), each carrying 16 RSM-56 Bulava SLBMs; Imperator Aleksandr III joined the fleet in December 2023
• 3 Delta IV SSBNs retain R-29RMU2 Layner missiles pending Borei replacements
• Yasen-M SSGNs field dual-capable Kalibr (3M-14) LACMs and have trial-fired Tsirkon hypersonic missiles
• Special-purpose submarine Belgorod for Poseidon strategic torpedoes (undergoing sea trials)

Air (Aerospace Forces & Naval Aviation)

• Tu-95MS and Tu-160/Tu-160M heavy bombers (~80 deployable) armed with Kh-102 nuclear cruise missiles; serial production of Tu-160M resumed, with four delivered since 2022
• MiG-31K & Tu-22M3M now operational with nuclear-capable Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles

Outlook

Through 2030 Moscow aims to finish replacing all legacy Soviet systems: final Yars regiments will complete rearmament in 2025; Sarmat should reach full-rate production if flight-test issues are solved; three more Borei-A SSBNs and up to six additional Yasen-M boats are slated for delivery; serial Tu-160M output will revive the bomber leg.
Emerging weapons, like Poseidon, nuclear Tsirkon, and potential land-attack variants of Kalibr, will widen strike options and complicate missile-defense planning. Doctrinal changes and forward deployment of non-strategic warheads in Belarus will keep NATO’s northeastern flank under heightened nuclear pressure.