Russian President Vladimir Putin issues nuclear alert, how many nukes does Russia have?

In reaction to Western sanctions for his war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin placed his country’s “deterrence forces,” which include nuclear weapons, on high alert on Sunday.

Putin highlighted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) ‘aggressive comments’ and strict financial penalties as reasons to strengthen up Russia‘s nuclear arsenals and instil concerns that the Russian invasion of Ukraine may lead to a nuclear confrontation.

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President Putin issued the instruction in the face of severe pushback from Ukrainian defenders. Even though Russian forces have moved over most of Ukraine, US officials say the invasion has been more difficult and slower than Moscow anticipated.

“Whoever attempts to obstruct us, let alone create risks for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response would be quick and lead to repercussions you have never seen in history,” Putin warned last week.

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How many nuclear weapons does Russia possess?

Russia has the world’s greatest stockpile of nuclear weapons. The country also possesses a sizable arsenal of ballistic missiles.

According to a report in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Russia has more than 1,500 warheads deployed as land, sea, and air-based missiles, with about 3,000 in reserve. Russia has devised a number of means to deploy these weapons, including land-based missiles capable of reaching the US, submarine-based missiles, and bombs and missiles that can be carried by aircraft.

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Russia keeps its land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, ready at all times. Only the Russian president has the authority to command a nuclear attack. Nuclear weapons have only been deployed in conflict once in history, when the United States destroyed Japan twice in August 1945, when the US had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union successfully tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949.

Is Ukraine equipped with nukes?

Ukraine, with a population of 44 million people, is a democratic country that gained independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. Ukraine had the third-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union came apart.

According to the US Arms Control Association, Ukraine possessed 1,900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 44 strategic bombers at the time of the USSR’s collapse.

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Nonetheless, Ukraine became a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1994, with Belarus and Kazakhstan, the other two former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) nuclear-weapons states.

Ukraine’s government took a significant move in the early 1990s when it disarmed and abandoned those hazardous weapons in exchange for economic compensation and security guarantees from the international community.

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Ukraine decided to give up its warheads to Russia for disassembly in return for reimbursement for the commercial worth of its highly enriched uranium and to accept US economic aid to remove bombers, missiles, and nuclear facilities.

Ukrainian nuclear weapons were delivered to Russia by the end of 1996, and the country’s final strategic nuclear delivery vehicle was decommissioned in 2001.