Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Bofferbrauer2]

Nuvendil said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

One may wonder if they have any nukes left considering they're constantly boasting but not following up with anything, including tests...

Nuclear testing is essentially banned worldwide via treaties and informal agreements.  Russia and the USA haven't conducted a test in about 30 uears.  And testing nukes is a good way to end up a pariah.  Just ask North Korea, the only nation in the 21st century to detonate a nuclear weapon.  

Russia is obviously already heavily sanctioned, but conducting nuclear testing would make things much, much worse.  Especially with nations like Hungary, Austria, Turkey, and other nations in Europe and abroad who have stayed fairly neutral.  And of course there's China, who has made it abundantly clear that nuclear weapons are a major red line with them in this whole situation.  Such a thing would royally piss them off, which Russia can't afford.

But perhaps most important of all, nuclear weapons testing has an intensely negative image in Russia and it's CSTO allies, more so than most places, due to the numerous unethical practices surrounding Soviet Russia's testing.  Resuming testing would be very unpopular in Russia and would destroy their relationship with Kazakhstan and other CSTO neighbors.  Worst of all, the most severe unrest within Russia would be in regions near those pissed off allies as well as Ukraine. 

So yeah, don't expect to see resumed testing in Russia (or really any developed nation).

I didn't mean the nukes themselves, though I certainly didn't make that obvious with my wording.

What I meant were the missiles that are supposed to transport the nukes to their destination. From what we know, those were all built during the soviet era and being within their silos ever since, so it's quite possible corrosion has had a toll on them, especially since most of those rockets use corrosive hypergolic fuels. For reference, the UR-100 are from 1967, the UR-100N are from 1975 and the R-36M2 are from 1988. The RS-28 Sarmat was supposed to replace the latter starting 2022 while the UR-100N are supposed to be retired... but nothing new has come out about them.

In other words, their ICBMs are all at least 35 years old and with the war and the sanctions, maintenance and getting their replacements online will get even more difficult. And while their tactical nukes are newer and much more numerous (the vast majority are tactical nukes by now it seems, they will also get hit hard by the sanctions.