Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future - Strategic ...

The pace and the success rate for each leg of the
triad are different. Modernization of the land-based,
ICBM force began in the 1990s and progresses slowly
but surely. Introduction of new types of weapons systems
into the sea-based leg has encountered major delays
and its future remains uncertain. Modernization
of the air leg has been postponed—Russia plans to
rely on existing aircraft in the foreseeable future and
only weapons for use by strategic bombers are being
gradually modernized with an emphasis on conventional
assets.
ICBM FORCE
The ICBM force modernization has been both conservative
and most successful. It its center is Topol-M,
a new ICBM designed in the last years of the Soviet
Union. The project was partially revised in the 1990s
to adapt to the new industrial base (a large part of
relevant enterprises remained outside Russia). In the
2000s, the same ICBM was further redesigned to carry
several warheads and was designated RS-24, or Yars.
Beginning of deployment was postponed until after
the expiration of START I.
The rate of ICBM production is low—less than 10
missiles each year; increase of production is unlikely.
After 10 years, only six regiments (60 missiles) of
silo-based ICBMs have been deployed and only two
regiments (18 missiles) of road-mobile ICBMs. In the
meantime, the SRF has been extending service lives of
existing types of delivery vehicles—to 31 years for SS-
18 and to 23 years for Topol (SS-25) and SS-19. 46
The low rate of missile production might be surprising,
given the impressive Soviet capability to turn
out large numbers of new weapons—in the 1980s
221