Globally, during 2023, the nine nuclear powers continued to modernize their nuclear arsenals and increasingly relied on them as a deterrent, according to a new report published June 17 by a Swedish think tank.
Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Dan Smith said the total number of nuclear warheads globally continues to decline as Cold War-era weapons are gradually dismantled.
However, as he added, there is still an increase in the number of operational nuclear warheads from year to year, the RSE newsroom reports in English.
"It looks like that trend will continue and probably accelerate in the coming years, which is very concerning," Smith added.
Earlier in June, Russia and its ally Belarus launched the second phase of tactical nuclear weapons deployment exercises. The Kremlin is doing this, according to analysts, to discourage the West from increasing its support for Ukraine.
Separately, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said in a report released on June 17 that the nine nuclear powers spent a total of $91,4 billion on their nuclear weapons programs in 2023.
ICAN said the figures show a $10,7 billion increase in global spending on nuclear weapons in 2023 compared to the previous year. At the same time, the United States of America accounts for 80 percent of that increase.
The US share of total spending, $51,5 billion, is greater than that of all other nuclear powers combined. The next largest spender was China with $11,8 billion, ICAN said, while Russia was in third place with $8,3 billion.
In its report, SIPRI estimated that about 2.100 deployed warheads were in a state of high operational readiness on ballistic missiles, and that almost all belonged to Russia or the United States.
However, China is also believed to have a certain number of warheads on high operational alert for the first time.
Russia and the US together hold almost 90 percent of nuclear weapons, SIPRI announced.
Their military stockpile sizes appear to have remained relatively stable in 2023, although Russia is estimated to have deployed about 36 more warheads with operational forces than in January 2023.
SIPRI warned that transparency regarding nuclear forces has declined in both countries since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and that discussions about nuclear weapons sharing agreements have gained importance.
Washington suspended its bilateral dialogue on strategic stability with Russia, and last year Moscow announced it was suspending its participation in the New START nuclear agreement.
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