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this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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Honestly I doubt that Russia has maintained their arsenal. Nuclear warheads must be maintained because the fissile cores wear out due to the natural halflife of uranium. So after X number of years (super-dooper state secret stuff, but it's like every 10 years based on napkin math I did in my undergrad) the cores must be replaced.
All that said - I think Russia's nuclear program is likely not in a functional state. The rockets work. They'll do a publicized underground test every few years to show off capability. But something like nine in ten of their warheads will not reach criticality and misfire today if actually used. That's still not a fun scenario, tens of millions would die. But it's not nuclear apocalypse level that they use for defense posturing.
People keep bringing this up, and it's likely true that most of them dont work anymore, but there is a no way in hell they haven't kept up maintenance on a few.
One tenth of their deployed ones would be 170, and even 17 would be enough to start a nuclear war.
The takeaway should be that they likely don't have the resources to back up their posturing, and are unlikely to try starting a nuclear war because of it (in theory).
Terrorist sizing those warheads don't have to back anything up, their job is done as soon as the bomb goes off.
90% chance the one they get is a dud, which is comforting.
But even if they fire a dud, the receiving part will see an incoming ICBM and won't wait to check whether it's a dud out not.