A high-ranking Russian official is touting his nation’s nuclear arsenal as the world’s best.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said during a recent appearance at the Znanie (Knowledge) education expo in Moscow that his nation for the first time has surpassed all other countries in terms of nuclear proficiency.
Patrushev, former director of the Federal Security Service and a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin since the 1970s, has been rumored to be a possible successor to Putin. Patrushev worked with Putin at the KGB and has been steadfast in supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine since the February 2022 invasion.
“For the first time in the history of the existence of nuclear missile weapons, our country is ahead of its competitors in this [nuclear] domain,” Patrushev said at the Znanie expo, according to the state-owned RT television channel.
He reportedly alluded to his country’s “unique strategic weapons, including hypersonic ones,” predicting that this “will guarantee Russia’s security for many decades.”
ANN observed that Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email for comment.
Patrushev also said in separate remarks in Tomsk, Siberia, that the number of scientists in Russia has decreased by around 25 percent over the past two decades, hindering the country’s ability to achieve “technological independence.” Many of those departures have been directly linked to opposition to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In its annual assessment of global armaments, disarmament and international security, published in June, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said Russia has a larger nuclear stockpile and nuclear inventory than its chief rival on this front, the United States.
While Russia and the U.S. together possess nearly 90 percent of all nuclear weapons, Russia’s stockpile of nuclear warheads, as of January 2023, is estimated to be 4,489, compared with the United States’ 3,708 warheads, SIPRI said. Russia’s total inventory exceeds the U.S. by about 650 warheads.
Both nations have had relatively stable inventories for the past year, SIPRI said. However, since the invasion of Ukraine, transparency regarding the utilization of such arsenals has not been at the forefront.
Both countries possess more than 1,000 warheads that have been previously retired from military service and are being dismantled.
John Erath, the senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told Newsweek that Patrushev’s boastfulness is akin to “that kid on the playground who always had to believe he or she had it better than everyone else.”
While growth in Russia’s nuclear inventory and its modernization continues, Erath said, that fact is irrelevant because deterrence would be possible and effective even with fewer weapons. Also, he said the totality of the stockpile “hasn’t helped much in its war of aggression.”
“There is an obvious danger from equating security with larger numbers of nuclear weapons, but less often considered is the degree to which Russia is increasingly relying on its nuclear forces to maintain its self-perceptions as a great power, especially with the degradation of its conventional forces,” he said.
Erath went on: “Patrushev and his boss want to remind everyone that Russia is still the baddest kid on the block, and at the same time raise Western fears of nuclear escalation if the Ukraine war doesn’t end with Russian victory—or some semblance thereof.”
One ballistic missile in Russia’s nuclear arsenal that has garnered attention in the past 18 months is the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, which has a payload of 480 kilograms. Each missile can travel between 1,500 and 2,000 kilometers (932 to 1,243 miles) and has been seen by some experts as superior to American technology, including the Patriot missile defense system.
Patrushev has previously boasted about Russia’s nuclear capabilities. In March of this year, he commented on the state of the Russia-U.S. relationship in a state-run newspaper and criticized American officials for their remarks about the Ukraine war.
“For some reason, American politicians who are held captive by their own propaganda remain confident that in the event of a direct conflict with Russia, the United States is capable of launching a preventive missile strike, after which Russia will no longer be able to respond,” Patrushev told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.
He added: “This is short-sighted stupidity, and very dangerous…. Russia is patient and does not intimidate anyone with its military advantage. But it has modern unique weapons capable of destroying any enemy, including the United States, in case of a threat to its existence.”
