According to a military expert, Russia's nuclear weapons are becoming obsolete.
Many warheads would have long since exceeded their service life.
Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons.
But are these ultimately just empty words?
According to one expert, the decommissioning of Russian nuclear weapons has already begun and will continue at least until the 2030s.
In the absence of on-site inspections, it's impossible to tell how much of Russia's claimed nuclear capability is actually operational, Ukraine's
Kyiv Independent
reports .
This is another reason why Vladimir Putin can continue to pretend parity with the USA or claim that he is building up nuclear weapons.
Many of Putin's nuclear weapons are ancient - there are currently no inspections
Most recently, Russia has stopped inspections of nuclear weapons, and Putin put the New START agreement with the United States on hold.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, justified the cancellation of negotiations on "New START" in 2022 with a "political decision" by the Kremlin.
The US had behaved in a "toxic and hostile" manner.
The US State Department has repeatedly asked Moscow to resume mutual on-site inspections.
Nothing prevents Russia from visiting American nuclear weapons facilities.
For example, Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces report having 46 R-36M2 Voyevoda heavy rockets (commonly known in the West by the NATO name SS-18 Satan) manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s.
Each of these missiles can contain up to 10 warheads.
This corresponds to an explosive force of up to one megaton.
For comparison: That would be one million tons of TNT.
In 1945, the United States dropped a 16-kiloton atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
(16,000 tons of TNT).
Vladimir Putin: The political career of the Russian head of state in pictures
Vladimir Putin: The political career of the Russian head of state in pictures
Military expert: Russia's nuclear weapons are long past their useful life
According to an expert, the R-36M2 Voyevoda missiles have long exceeded their service life.
This type of rocket is designed for a maximum service life of ten to 15 years.
However, the durability can be extended with tests and maintenance.
"You can prolong the deployment of R-36M2 on paper as long as you want, but time is running out for launchers, navigation components and propulsion elements," said Pavel Luzin, an expert on Russian defense policy at the US Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Kyiv Independent
.
“There are not only missiles, but also, for example, nuclear-armed submarines and even bombers that need to be reduced.
Not only the R-36M2, but also the Topol and Topol-M missile systems will be phased out.”
And this dismantling will continue at least until the end of the decade.
In addition, Luzin said, the production of new nuclear missile systems in Russia is not keeping pace with the inevitable reduction.
Russia's nuclear weapons could thus degenerate more and more to scrap.
However, not everyone necessarily sees it that way: It is known "that Russia has invested massively in the modernization of its nuclear forces in the last ten years, specifically in the corresponding delivery systems," said Ulrich Kühn from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg in the past year the ZDF.
(mse)