How big is Russia's nuclear arsenal? Who controls it? 10 things

Moscow President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Russia has made an agreement with neighboring Belarus to deploy strategic nuclear weapons on its territory, but would not violate non-proliferation agreements. 

Moscow: Moscow President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Russia has reached an agreement with neighboring Belarus to deploy strategic nuclear weapons on its territory but will not violate non-proliferation agreements. 

Information about Russia's nuclear arsenal

Russia, which inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union, has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. According to the Federation of American Scientists, Putin was controlling about 5,977 such weapons by 2022, compared to 5,428 controlled by US President Joe Biden.

Of those, about 1,500 weapons are retired (but probably still retained), 2,889 are in reserve, and about 1,588 are strategic weapons. According to the Bulletin of the Nuclear Scientists, about 812 are deployed on land-based ballistic missiles, about 576 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and about 200 on heavy bomber bases.

Russia has about 400 nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates can carry up to 1,185 warheads. Russia operates 10 nuclear-armed nuclear submarines that can carry up to 800 warheads. It has about 60 to 70 nuclear bombers. 

The United States said in its 2022 nuclear status review that Russia and China are expanding and modernizing their nuclear forces, and that Washington will adopt an arms control-based approach to prevent a costly arms race. Putin said That they are aware that America is developing new types of nuclear weapons. Russia is modernizing its nuclear weapons. 

According to the Arms Control Association, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, only a few countries have tested nuclear weapons: the United States last in 1992, China and France last in 1996, India and Pakistan in 1998. in, and North Korea last tested in 2017. The Soviet Union did the last test in 1990.

According to Russia's nuclear doctrine, the Russian President is the final decision maker on whether to use Russian nuclear weapons, both strategic and non-strategic. The so-called nuclear briefcase, or "Cheget" (named after Mount Cheget in the Caucasus Mountains), is carried by the President at all times. The Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu (currently), and Valery Gerasimov, currently the Chief of the General Staff, have also been reported to possess such briefcases. 

The briefcase is a communication device that links the president to his military top brass and from there to the rocket forces through the highly secretive "Kazbek" electronic command-and-control network.

In 2019, footage shown by Russia's Zvezda television channel showed it was a briefcase with an array of buttons. The section titled "Commands" contains two buttons: a white "Launch" button and a red "Cancel" button. According to Zvezda the briefcase is activated by a special flashcard.

If Russia thought it faced a strategic nuclear attack, the president, through briefcases, would send launch orders directly to the General Staff Command and Reserve Command units that had the nuclear codes. Such orders are rapidly carried up the various communications systems to the Strategic Rocket Force units which then strike in the United States and Europe.

If a nuclear strike is confirmed, Putin may activate the so-called "dead hand" or "perimeter" system of last resort. A control rocket would command a nuclear strike from Russia's vast arsenal.