1. Russia’s SLBMs, tactical nukes, and road-mobile ICBMs work best and are probably the easiest to maintain. I predict that they work at rates comparable to NATO and China.
2. I predict that 20-50% of Russia’s silo-based ICBMs don’t work. There were eyewitness accounts back in the early 1990s of Russian silos flooding with water, although those eyewitness accounts are 30+ years old. That combined with limited money and high corruption means that a huge chunk of them either don’t work or aren’t as effective and reliable.
3. 75-90% of Russia’s nukes in storage don’t work. Most of them are literally waiting to be disarmed.
4. This means that at minimum, around 2/3 of Russia’s total nuclear arsenal is not working.

Russia’s nukes probably suffer the same fate as their other equipment. Poor maintenance, corruption, and slow development which leads to high rates of failure and ineffectiveness. However, top US officials do say that Russia’s nuclear arsenal has been modernizing with the deployment of new missiles and upgrading older ones. I said my piece, but what’s your take?

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