Two days ago, after the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, announced the suspension of the New Start Treaty, we wrote that this decision paved the way for a future rise in power of the Russian operational nuclear arsenal, the latter being today the only asset remaining in the hands of the head of the Kremlin, to justify Russia's superpower status on the international scene, while its conventional forces have been very severely reduced by a year of war in Ukraine. It only took two days, and despite the skeptical comments of some journalists on this subject, for the Russian leader to give substance to this hypothesis. Indeed, speaking within the framework of the day of heroes defenders of the motherland, a traditional holiday in Russia since 1922 celebrating the military and then, over time, law enforcement, security and firefighters , the Russian President announced the upcoming strengthening of the Russian nuclear triad.
To achieve this, Vladimir Putin presented several future measures, such as the upcoming entry into service of new intercontinental ballistic missiles, in this case the RS-28 Sarmat, but also the construction of new nuclear ballistic missile submarines , probably of the Borei-A class, and the reinforcement of the strategic air forces, with the Tu-160M and perhaps the hypothetical arrival of the PAK-DA stealth bomber. Finally, the development and deployment of new hypersonic missiles, whether airborne like the Kinzhal, or with naval launching or submarines, like the 3M22 Tzirkon, will be intensified. On the other hand, the president specified that the procedures of reciprocal information with the occident, concerning the tests of vectors will be maintained.
Recall that in 2018, the Russian military programming law GPV 2018-2027, had already recorded the transition from an initial fleet of 10 SSBNs to a fleet of 12 ships, i.e. as many as the United States plans to build new SSBNs of the Columbia class. With this announcement, the Russian President suggests that the format of the Russian strategic fleet will go beyond this number, which will not fail to generate a reaction on the part of Washington, which could, due to the suspension of the treaty New Start, decide to compensate not only the Russian fleet in the making, but also the growing Chinese nuclear force and which implements, among other things, a fleet today strong of 6 ships, to return to a strategic fleet between 18 and 24 ships, as the Ohio class should have been initially.
The rest of this article is for subscribers only -
Full-access articles are available in the “ Free Items“. Flash Articles are accessible in full version for 48 hours. Subscribers have access to the full Analyses, News and Synthesis articles. Articles in Archives (more than 2 years old) are reserved for Premium subscribers.
The purchase of subscriptions is only accessible from the website – Subscriptions and Tools section
