Russia possesses one of the largest stockpiles of
weapons of mass destruction in the world. The country declared an arsenal of 28,000 tons of
chemical weapons in 2008
["", Global Security Newswire, National Journal Group, February 20, 2009]. According to the Nuclear Notebook Russia had 5,200
nuclear weapons deployed in early 2008, making its
stockpile the largest in the world.
Other sources, such as
Alexander Khramchikhin, an analyst at the
Institute of Political and Military Analysis, say that Russia has 3,100 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. has 5,700. According to a report published by the U.S State Department in April, 2009, Russia has 3,909 nuclear warheads, while the US has 5,576 warheads.
The
Soviet Union ratified the
Geneva Protocol on January 22, 1975 with reservations. The reservations were later dropped on January 18, 2001.
Nuclear weapons
History
Nuclear arsenal of Russia
Mid-2007 Russia was estimated to have around 3,281 active
strategic nuclear warheads in its arsenal.
[ by Adrian Blomfield, Telegraph, 5 June 2007] Russia also has a large but unknown number of
tactical nuclear weapons . Strategic nuclear forces of Russia include:
- Land based Strategic Rocket Forces: 489 missiles carrying up to 1,788 warheads; they employ immobile (silos), like SS-18 Satan, and mobile delivery systems, like SS-27 Topol M.
- Sea based Strategic Fleet: 12 submarines carrying up to 609 warheads; they should be able to employ, in a near future, delivery systems like SS-N-30 Bulava.
As of July 2009, Russias strategic arsenal reportedly shrunk to 2.683 warheads: 367
ICBM/1.248; 13
SSBN/591; 76 Bombers/884.
Doctrine of limited nuclear war
According to a Russian military doctrine stated in
2003, tactical nuclear weapons of the Strategic Deterrence Forces could be used to "prevent political pressure against Russia and her allies (
Armenia,
Belarus,
Serbia,
Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, and
Tajikistan)." Thus, the Russian leadership "is officially contemplating a limited
nuclear war".
[ - analysis by Dmitri Trenin, IFRI Proliferation Papers n°13, 2005]Nuclear proliferation
After the
Korean War,
Soviet Union transferred nuclear technology and weapons to the
People's Republic of China as an adversary of the
United States and
NATO According to
Ion Mihai Pacepa, "Khrushchev’s nuclear-proliferation process started with Communist China in April 1955, when the new ruler in the Kremlin consented to supply Beijing a sample atomic bomb and to help with its mass production. Subsequently, the Soviet Union built all the essentials of China’s new military nuclear industry."
[ - by Ion Mihai Pacepa, National Review,October 17, 2006]Russia is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" (NWS) under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Russia ratified (as the
Soviet Union) in
1968.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a number of Soviet-era nuclear warheads remained on the territories of Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Under the terms of the Lisbon Protocol to the NPT, and following the 1995 Trilateral Agreement between Russia, Belarus, and the USA, these were transferred to Russia, leaving Russia as the sole inheritor of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. It is estimated that the USSR had approximately 39,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled at the time of its collapse.
USSR/Russian nuclear warhead stockpiles, 1949-2002.
The collapse of the Soviet Union allowed for a warming of relations with NATO. Fears of a
nuclear holocaust lessened. In September 1997, the former secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Lebed claimed 100 "suitcase sized" nuclear weapons were unaccounted for. He said he was attempting to inventory the weapons when he was fired by President Boris Yeltsin in October 1996. In 2005, Sergey Sinchenko, a legislator from the
Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc said 250 nuclear weapons were unaccounted for. When comparing documents of nuclear weapons transferred from Ukraine to weapons received by Russia, there was a 250 weapon discrepancy. Indeed, several US politicians have expressed worries and promised legislation addressing the threat.
In 2002, the United States and Russia agreed to reduce their stockpiles to not more than 2200 warheads each in the
SORT treaty. In 2003, the US rejected Russian proposals to further reduce both nation's nuclear stockpiles to 1500 each. Russia, in turn, refused to discuss reduction of
tactical nuclear weaponsRussia is actively producing and developing new nuclear weapons. Since 1997 it manufactures
Topol-M (SS-27) ICBMs.
There were allegations that Russia contributed to
North Korean nuclear program, selling it the equipment for the safe storage and transportation of nuclear materials.
[ - by a Special Correspondent in Pyongyang and Michael Hirst, Telegraph, September 7, 2006.] Nevertheless, Russia condemned Korean nuclear tests since then.
According to high-ranking Russian
SVR defector
Tretyakov, he had a meeting with two Russian businessman representing a state-created
Chetek corporation in 1991. They came up with a fantastic project of destroying large quantities of chemical wastes collected from Western countries at the island of
Novaya Zemlya (a test place for Soviet nuclear weapons) using an underground nuclear blast. The project was rejected by Canadian representatives, but one of the businessmen told Tretyakov that he keeps his own nuclear bomb at his
dacha outside
Moscow. Tretyakov thought that man was insane, but the "businessmen" (Vladimir K. Dmitriev) replied: "Do not be so naive. With economic conditions the way they are in Russia today, anyone with enough money can buy a nuclear bomb. It's no big deal really"
[Pete Earley, "Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War", Penguin Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-399-15439-3, pages 114-121.].
Nuclear sabotage allegations
The highest-ranking
GRU defector
Stanislav Lunev described alleged Soviet plans for using
tactical nuclear weapons for
sabotage against the United States in the event of war. He described Soviet-made
suitcase nukes identified as RA-115s (or RA-115-01s for submersible weapons) which weigh from fifty to sixty pounds. These portable bombs can last for many years if wired to an electric source. “In case there is a loss of power, there is a battery backup. If the battery runs low, the weapon has a transmitter that sends a coded message – either by satellite or directly to a
GRU post at a Russian embassy or consulate.”
[Stanislav Lunev. Through the Eyes of the Enemy: The Autobiography of Stanislav Lunev, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998. ISBN 0-89526-390-4.].
Lunev was personally looking for hiding places for weapons caches in the
Shenandoah Valley area.
He said that "it is surprisingly easy to smuggle nuclear weapons into the US" either across the Mexican border or using a small transport missile that can slip though undetected when launched from a Russian airplane
US Congressman
Curt Weldon supported claims by Lunev, but "Weldon said later the FBI discredited Lunev, saying that he exaggerated things." Searches of the areas identified by Lunev - who admits he never planted any weapons in the US - have been conducted, "but law-enforcement officials have never found such weapons caches, with or without portable nuclear weapons." in the US (several Soviet weapons caches booby-trapped with
"Lightning" explosive devices were found in Europe based on information provided by another defector,
Vasili Mitrokhin )
Biological weapons
Soviet program of
biological weapons has been initially developed by the
Soviet Ministry of Defense (between
1945 and
1973).
[ Alibek, K. and S. Handelman. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World– Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran it. Delta (2000) ISBN 0-385-33496-6]Soviet Union signed the
Biological Weapons Convention on April 10, 1972 and ratified the treaty on March 26, 1975. Since then, the program of Biological weapons was run primarily by the "civilian"
Biopreparat agency, although it also included numerous facilities run by the Soviet Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Chemical Industry, Ministry of Health, and
Soviet Academy of Sciences.
According to
Ken Alibek, who was deputy-director of
Biopreparat, the Soviet biological weapons agency, and who defected to the USA in 1992, weapons were developed in labs in isolated areas of the Soviet Union including mobilization facilities at
Omutininsk,
Penza and
Pokrov and research facilities at
Moscow,
Stirzhi and
Vladimir. These weapons were tested at several facilities most often at "Rebirth Island" (
Vozrozhdeniya) in the
Aral Sea by firing the weapons into the air above monkeys tied to posts, the monkeys would then be monitored to determine the effects. According to Alibek, although Soviet offensive program was officially ended in 1992, Russia may be still involved in the activities prohibited by BWC
In
1993, the story about the
Sverdlovsk anthrax leak was published in Russia. The incident occurred when
spores of
anthrax were accidentally released from a military facility in the city of Sverdlovsk (formerly, and now again,
Yekaterinburg) 900 miles east of Moscow on April 2, 1979. The ensuing outbreak of the disease resulted in 94 people becoming infected, 64 of whom died over a period of six weeks.
Chemical weapons
Russia signed the
Chemical Weapons Convention on January 13, 1993 and ratified it on November 5, 1997. Russia declared an arsenal of 40,000 tons of
chemical weapons in 1997.
Russia met its treaty obligations by destroying 1% of its chemical agents by the Chemical Weapons Convention's 2002 deadline , but requested technical and financial assistance and extensions on the deadlines of
2004 and
2007 due to the environmental challenges of chemical disposal. This extension procedure spelled out in the treaty has been utilized by other countries, including the
United States.
Russia has built three chemical weapons destruction plants: at
Gorny, at
Kambarka, and at the
Maradykovsky complex. Four more facilities are still under construction at other locations. Lieutenant General
Valery Kapashin reaffirmed in 2007 that Russia would fulfill its obligations under the
CWC to destroy all of its chemical weapon stockpiles by 2012; however, U.S. analyses have claimed that neither Russia nor the U.S. will finish operations by that date. Russia's program is financed by Russian funding as well as money from the U.S. and other countries.
See also
