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Documenting Russia's Nuclear Arsenal
By Mikhail Pogorely
Global Beat Issue Brief No. 43, November 6, 1998
Copyright 1998*, Center for War, Peace and the News Media
 
 
On November 3, 1998, the National Press Institute of Russia (NPI) hosted the public presentation of Strategic Nuclear Armaments of Russia, an unprecedented, detailed examination of current Russian nuclear arsenal. Mikhail Pogorely, head of NPI's nuclear reporting program (sponsored by the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media), provides a summary and chapter-by-chapter review of the book's contents, as well as a list of the authors and resources for related material. To date, the book is only available in a limited, Russian-language edition. For more information, see the contacts listed below.
 
 
In creating a new encyclopedia of Russian strategic nuclear forces, the authors of Strategic Nuclear Armaments of Russia presents the public with a vast amount of new, useful and interesting data. In a single volume, book editor Pavel Podvig of the Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and his colleagues have included detailed examinations of Russian/Soviet nuclear history along with current assessments of the nuclear chain of command, warhead production, training, and the nuclear weapons infrastructure. At a time of intense political and economic pressure on the Russian military to maintain a secure and modern arsenal, the new book provides a critical baseline of information for public and policy makers alike.
 
The story of the book's production is itself quite interesting. All the material in the book is based on legally open sources of information, although much of the data was -- and is -- quite difficult to obtain in Russia. The book was also submitted for review by Minatom and Ministry of Defense experts, and just recently cleared for publication as "containing no state or military secrets." This means that journalists may freely use the information published in the book without fear of prosecution or other harassment. This clearance is extremely important in Russia today, given the ongoing legal battles of Russian navy captains Alexander Nikitin and Grigory Pasko, both of whom are under FSB (state security service) investigation for allegedly "giving away secrets of the Russian nuclear complex."
 
Finally, the book was also financed by grants from American foundations, the W. Alton Jones Foundation and the Ploughshares Fund [both of which also support the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media - ed.] Anatoly Diakov, head of the arms control center at the Moscow Institute, stated that Russian sponsorship of a publication covering such sensitive issues, would have been preferable, but, because of the economic situation in the country, quite unrealistic. Podvig also noted that the American foundations had not interfered in any way in the actual research or production of the book.
 
There are several existing volumes with some similar information, including the "Nuclear Weapons" volume of the quasi-official Catalogue of Russian weapons series. But this publication by the military industry-sponsored Passport Press company is very expensive and little available to journalists or the public. A 1988 American book, Soviet Nuclear Weapons: Nuclear Weapons Databook Vol. 4 (Ballinger, 1988) is outdated to a great degree, and even originally contained incorrect data.
 
Availability of Strategic Nuclear Armaments of Russia will also be a problem, however. Currently, only 2,000 copies have been published, and most of them will be distributed free. Given that every writer and journalist quoted in the book, every design bureau and production plant, every military HQ and major unit, every political party and public figure, every institutional and private researcher will no doubt like to acquire a copy, there may be very few actually available to the general reading public.
 
Strategic Nuclear Armament of Russia consists of eight chapters, covering various aspects of nuclear armaments: strategy, development and production of warheads and launchers, testing, procedures of combat training and service duty, infrastructure.
 
Chapter 1 reviews the evolution of Soviet nuclear weapons, the general history of strategic nuclear forces, and the record of USSR/Russia-USA arms control and disarmament, up to START II and prospects of START III.
 
Chapter 2 describes the major elements of the chain of command over nuclear
weapons, responsibilities of political and military authorities for armaments and fissile materials safety, and procedures for the use of strategic forces -- in a hypothetical nuclear war and in an everyday practice of combat duty missions. This chapter also outlines the decision-making process inside the defense industry sector related to production of nuclear warheads and launchers.
 
Chapter 3 analyzes the process of nuclear warhead creation and production. Every major stage is viewed here: Uranium ore processing and enrichment, production of weapons grade nuclear materials (Uranium and Plutonium); and design, production, assembling and disassembling, i.e., the entire life-span of Russian nuclear warheads. The chapter contains data on all major objects of the nuclear industrial and scientific infrastructure of the former USSR and today's Russia (including Arzamas-16, Chelyabinsk-70, Chelyabinsk-65, Tomsk-7, Krasnoyarsk-26, Penza-19, Sverdlovsk-45, Zlatoust-36, Electrostal, Novosibirsk, Chepets, Ulbin, Urals enrichment and assembling plants, etc.). The chapter also describe the principles of exploiting nuclear warheads by the specialized units of the Ministry of Defense.
 
Chapter 4 is devoted to the Strategic Nuclear Forces (SNF), the land-based element of the Russian nuclear triad. This includes a history of missile development since 1930s, and a description of all major ICBM and launching pads design and production sites (like Energia complex, Yuzhnoye design and production complex, Arsenal construction bureau, MIT, Mashinostroyeniye complex, etc.). The chapter also offers an overview of SNF organizational structure and the location of its military units across both the former USSR and in Russia today, as well as principles and procedures of ICBM employment, including combat duty. There are detailed technical descriptions of every Soviet/Russian silo-based, mobile or railroad missile here, from the 300 kiloton R-5M (SS-3 Shyster) that was put on combat duty back in June 1956, up to the most modern RS-12M 2 (SS-27 Topol-M) the first regiment of which is expected to be put on duty in December 1998.
 
Chapter 5 covers the naval strategic forces, presenting the history of the development, design and production of submarines and submarine-based nuclear weapons (SLBMs, cruise missiles, torpedoes); organization of submarine units at the Northern and Pacific fleets' naval bases; and high-sea patrolling procedures. The chapter also includes technical data on all Soviet/Russian submarines from the first diesel-powered B-67 of the AB-611 (Zulu IY 1/2) project of 1956, up to the two-nuclear-reactors 667 BDRM (Delta IY) <pictured here> armed with 4 to 10 MIRVed warheads 16 P-29PM missiles, the last of which entered service in 1990.
 
The chapter does not give detailed descriptions of the latest Russian Yury Dolgoruky submarine project supposed to be armed with a Bark missile, however, because the editorial work on the book was finished early in 1997, when little progress on the submarine and the weapon was seen.
 
Chapter 6 gives a view of the historically first and now the poorest leg of the nuclear triad, strategic aviation. The chapter presents a history of all strategic bombers, beginning with the Tu-4, copied from the US-made B-29 in 1947, to the Tu-160 Blackjack, production of which stopped in 1992, It reviews similarly Soviet/Russian strategic nuclear bombs and cruise missiles. It also covers the Tupolev and Myasishev design bureaus and Kazan and Samara production plants.
 
Chapter 7 deals with Soviet/Russian Strategic Air defense, including ABM systems, over-the-horizon radar and space echelons of ballistic missile warning system, and space defense. It is necessary to once again mention that the editorial work on the book was finished more than a year and a half ago; since then the early warning system, ABM and spaces defense structures and forces have been merged with Russia's Strategic Missile Forces (along with Military Space Forces that are not depicted specifically in this book).
 
Chapter 8 is a digest of data on Soviet nuclear tests (there were no Russian tests), specifying time, place, method, aims and TNT equivalent of every military or peaceful nuclear explosion, starting from the first on August 29, 1949 and ending with the last on October 24, 1990.
 
The book also includes a very helpful Annex with an index of all Russian strategic systems and weapons ­- including their parallel names used by Russian design bureaus, industry and the military on the one hand, and by the Pentagon and NATO at negotiations and in treaties, on the other. These names in most cases differ, and this has often confused journalists and the general public.
 
The authors:
 
· Pavel Podvig, Editor, has been with the Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies since 1991. He also wrote Chapters 1 and 8, and participated in work on Chapters 2 and 7.
 
· Oleg Bukharin, with the Center in 1991-1992, is now at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Princeton University, and is co-author of the book Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin. He shared work on Chapter 3.
 
· Maxim Tarasenko has been with the Center since 1991, and is author of the book Military Aspects of Soviet Cosmonautics. He wrote Chapter 4 and contributed the section on SLBMs to Chapter 5.
 
· Yevgeny Myasnikov has been with the Center since 1991, and is author of the forthcoming book Soviet and Russian Naval Strategic Nuclear Forces. He wrote the section on SSBNs in Chapter 5.
 
· Timur Kadyshev has been with the Center since 1991, and authored Chapter 6.
 
· Boris Zhelezov was at the Institute for USA and Canada Studies during production of the book, is now at the Open Society Institute, and is author of the book Civil Control over the Military Budget in Russia. He participated in work on Chapter 2.
 
· Igor Sutyagin has been with the Institute for USA and Canada Studies since 1988. He contributed to Chapters 3 and 7.
 
********************
For more information:
 
Mikhail Pogorely, Director
Security Programs
National Press Institute (Russia)
119870 Moscow
Zubovsky Bulvar, 22/39
RUSSIA
Phone: 7-095-245-3008
Fax: 7 (095) 246-7502
e-mail: npi@npi.ru
 
 
Click here for English summaries of the Russian-language bulletin Nuclear Security and Safety, edited by Mikhail Pogorely, which provides ongoing coverage of Russian nuclear programs.
 
Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
 
W. Alton Jones Foundation
 
Ploughshares Fund
 
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