Anya L. Fink
According to the Pentagon’s 2026 National Defense Strategy, Russia “possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, which it continues to modernize and diversify, as well as undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the U.S. Homeland.”
Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has invoked Russia’s nuclear weapons in an apparent attempt to deter Western military intervention against Russia in Ukraine and stated that Russia has deployed nonstrategic nuclear weapons to its ally Belarus. The 2010 New START Treaty that limited U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces expired in February 2026, though Russian officials then stated that Russia would continue to abide by the treaty’s central limits—1,550 warheads on 700 deployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles and a total of 800 deployed and nondeployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles—as long as the United States did so. Congress may choose to examine U.S. deterrence and risk reduction policy toward Russia, including whether or not to support future arms control.
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