Russia, which inherited the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, has the world's biggest store of nuclear warheads
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MOSCOW, Russia – President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the United States sent troops to Ukraine the move would be considered a significant escalation of the war.Russia, which inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons, has the world’s biggest store of nuclear warheads.
Of the stockpiled warheads, 1,710 strategic warheads are deployed: about 870 on land-based ballistic missiles, about 640 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and possibly 200 at heavy bomber bases, FAS said.During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had a peak of around 40,000 nuclear warheads, while the US peak was around 30,000.
“In the future, however, the number of warheads assigned to Russian strategic forces may increase as single-warhead missiles are replaced with missiles equipped with multiple warheads,” FAS said.Last year, he signed a law withdrawing Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty .