Russia: Substrategic (Tactical) Nuclear Weapons

To return to the main Nuclear Weapons entry, see the Nuclear Weapons Overview file.

For more information, see Additional Resources below.
Archived Tactical Nuclear Weapons Developments (1991-2003)
1997 Stockpile Estimate, 1998 Stockpile Status, and 1998 Deployment Table.
For recent developments, see the General Nuclear Weapons Developments file.

No official Russian data exist on current substrategic (tactical) nuclear weapon stockpiles or deployments. Because there are no treaties requiring information exchange on tactical nuclear weapons between the US and Russia, there are no "baseline" figures for estimates. Analyses of the implementation of the 1991 unilateral reduction initiatives and estimates of deployments are available for 1997 and 1998. In addition, an archived chronological developments section tracked news related to tactical nuclear weapons from 1992 to 2003.

During the Soviet period, tactical nuclear weapons were deployed in almost every republic of the USSR. A Russian scholar, basing his figures on a Newsweek report, indicates the weapons were distributed as follows: Armenia--200; Azerbaijan--75; Belarus--1,180; Estonia--270; Georgia--320; Kazakhstan--330; Kyrgyzstan--75; Lithuania--325; Latvia--185; Moldova--90; Russia--12,320; Tajikistan--75; Turkmenistan--125; Ukraine--2,345; Uzbekistan-- 105. Total estimated deployment was thus 18,020. By the end of 1991, tactical nuclear weapons had been withdrawn from every republic except for those where strategic weapons were also located.[1] All former Soviet tactical nuclear weapons were withdrawn from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine by the end of May 1992.

Since 1992, Russia is believed to have eliminated a significant number of its tactical nuclear warheads. However, the completion of this effort, initially delayed due to funding constraints, has no clear time frame and may be linked to U.S. reduction of tactical nuclear forces in Europe. A 2007 estimate in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists placed the number of Russian operational tactical nuclear weapons at 2,330.[2] See Additional Resources for more information on stockpile estimates and policy issues.

[1] Vladimir Belous, Takticheskoye yadernoye oruzhiye v novykh geopoliticheskikh usloviyakh, Yadernyy kontrol, No. 14, February 1996, p. 2.
[2] Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, "Russian Nuclear Forces, 2007," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 63, No. 2, March/April 2007, p. 64.

Additional Resources:

Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, Congressional Research Service Report by Amy F. Woolf, January 2008.
Russia's Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Report for the Swedish Defence Research Agency by Gunnar Arbman and Charles Thornton.
Part 1: Background and Policy Issues, November 2003.
Part 2: Technical Issues and Policy Recommendations, February 2005.
Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNW), NTI Issue Brief by Nikolai Sokov, May 2002.
Tactical Nuclear Weapons: The Nature of the Problem, CNS Report by William Potter and Nikolai Sokov, January 2001.
(U.S.) Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Germany: Time for Withdrawal?, NTI Issue Brief by Thomas Maettig, March 2008.

Page last updated 11 April 2008 by AL.
For major recent developments, see the General Nuclear Weapons Developments file.

Comments or questions? E-mail Nikolai Sokov:  nsokovATmiis.edu.

This material is produced independently for NTI by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2002 by MIIS.

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