On 19 May 2026, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it will hold an exercise "to prepare and use nuclear forces in the face of the threat of aggression" in the period of 19-21 May 2026. It was said to include "over 200 missile launchers, more than 140 aircraft, 73 surface ships, and 13 submarines, including 8 strategic missile submarines." The scale suggested that the non-strategic part of the exercise and Belarus' participation is accounted for as well.

The objective of the exercise may deserve a note - a more accurate translation would be "on the preparation and employment of nuclear forces under conditions of a threat of aggression." This formula has not been seen before. What is notable here is the use would not be in response to aggression, but rather "under a threat of aggression."

The timing of the exercise is also rather unusual. Normally, large exercises of strategic forces take place in the fall. One infamous exception is the exercise that was moved from the fall of 2021 to 19 February 2022, a few days before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It should be noted that the 2022 exercise involved non-strategic nuclear weapons, just like this one. On the other hand, there was a precedent of an exercise held in May, in 2014, so it is not entirely unprecedented.

Judging by NOTAMs, the original plan was to conduct the exercise around 9-11 May 2026. It is not clear why it was postponed.

In the end, the strategic part of the exercise took place on 21 May 2026. It involved a launch of a Yars missile from a Krona shelter at the Plesetsk test site. The previous Yars launch was conducted as part of the October 2025 exercise.

There were two launches from the Barents Sea - of a Tsirkon missile from a surface ship and of a Sineva SLBM from a Project 667BDRM/Delta IV submarine. The previous launch of Sineva took place in October 2025.

The aviation component of the exercise included Tu-95MS bombers taking off from the Ukrainka base to launch their air-launched cruise missiles and a MiG-31 aircraft taking off with a Kinzhal missile (the originally posted video showed the process of loading Kinzhal on the aircraft).

Finally, Belarusian crews conducted a launch of an Iskander ballistic missile from the Kapustin Yar test site.

It is not clear why Russia held a major strategic exercise in May and not in the fall as it normally does. The parallel with 19 February 2022 looks rather ominous, especially if you note that 2022 was also unusual in that it included launches of Tsirkon (from a submarine) and Kinzhal. Back then there was also a launch of a Kalibr cruise missile (from a submarine). Nothing similar happened this time. And it was cruise missile Iskander in 2022, not the ballistic one. But these differences are not significant. I guess we will find out soon if there is something to it.

On 18 May 2026, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced the start of an exercise of "military units involved in the combat use of nuclear weapons and nuclear support." The objective was described as checking the readiness of the troops and "the organization of the combat employment from unplanned areas." The announcement said that the exercise will test the procedures of "delivery of nuclear weapons and their preparation for use," which will be done in coordination with the Russian military. The Russian Ministry of Defense did not say anything about its role, although the 12th Main Directorate took notice of the Belarusian exercise.

The next day, on 19 May 2026, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it will hold its own large-scale exercise "to prepare and use nuclear forces in the face of the threat of aggression" in the period of 19-21 May 2026. It was said to include "over 200 missile launchers, more than 140 aircraft, 73 surface ships, and 13 submarines, including 8 strategic missile submarines." Belarus' participation was mentioned as well.

The strategic part of the exercise apparently had to wait for the Russian president to return to Moscow from his visit to China. But the non-strategic element went ahead without him.

On 20 May 2026, the Russian MoD released a video (probably recorded on 19 May) of its units involved in various activities. The announcement stated that "the delivery of nuclear munitions to field storage points of missile brigades' positioning areas was ensured." The missile brigades in question apparently were those with Iskander cruise missiles, shown in the video (by the way, the containers appear to be Type 3 in Jeffrey Lewis' classification).

All this was separate from what was happening in Belarus. Russian MoD mentioned training related to "nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus," but made it reasonably clear that it is a separate activity. According to the Belarusian MoD, on 20 May 2026, the combat crews of units that operate Iskander ballistic missiles "carried out a set of measures to prepare for the receipt of special munitions and their mating with missiles." It is not entirely clear whether these measures were limited to preparations or the actual receipt and mating took place. My reading of the text is that it is the former - no Russian troops that would deliver the weapons are mentioned. The announcement also mentions aircraft, which (two Su-25) were also in the video. The aircraft were said to perform "imitation bombing with special munitions," but there was nothing to suggest that Russian 12th GUMO units were there to deliver anything.

The Russians apparently came at night. The video released by the Belarusian MoD in the morning of 21 May 2026 showed what was identified as trucks of the 12th GUMO. They appear in the second half of the video (the first half shows some Belarusian trucks that do not seem to have anything to do with anything). The video appears to show personnel opening armored back doors of the truck, probably to prepare the warhead for mating with the missile.

A few words about how the preparation for use of Iskander ballistic missiles appears to be structured. Missiles and warheads arrive at the designated meeting point (apparently the "field storage points" mentioned earlier) separately. In this case, missiles are operated by the Belarusian military, in Russia these would be Russian units. Warheads, however, are always handled by the 12th GUMO personnel. Once at the meeting point, the 12th GUMO troops mate warheads with missiles. This procedure may require a special assembly bench, but it's possible that it can be done while the missile is on the transporter vehicle.

Once the warhead is on the missile, the transporter is probably guarded by the 12th GUMO crews. When the higher command orders bringing the system to the highest degree of readiness, which may include authorization to launch the missile at a designated target, the missile and nuclear crews transfer the missile from the transporter to the launcher. As I understand it, it would be after this procedure that the 12th GUMO transfers custody of the nuclear warhead to the missile crew, Belarusian in this case. Not earlier.

The procedure of releasing weapons to aviation is probably similar, the main difference being that there is no need to transfer a weapon to a transporter vehicle. The procedure with Iskander cruise missile must be different, since the missile is stored and transported in a container and the weapon section is not easily accessible. And that difference may account for the fact that there are no cruise missiles that have nuclear warheads assigned to them in Belarus. But that is for another post.

This procedure does not require nuclear warheads to be stored near missiles. Indeed, I believe that the plan is that if time comes the warheads would be brought to Belarus from Bryansk. It is a drive that can take several hours, but it is not that unusual for the 12th GUMO. There is also an option of keeping warheads at the storage site in Asipovichi, but we have not seen a confirmation that this is what is being done.

Now, naturally, one would assume that these kinds of exercises do not involve actual nuclear weapons and everything is done with training models. But that is not what the Chief of the General Staff said on 21 May 2026 before the strategic part of the exercise (my translation):

In the first phase of the exercise, from May 19 to 20, a snap exercise of nuclear forces was conducted. Troops and forces were brought to the "Full" combat readiness, and the delivery and transfer of nuclear munitions to Russian and Belarusian units that can use nuclear weapons in combat was carried out.

This seems to suggest that the exercise went as far as to actually get to the point of mating actual warheads with missiles and loading these missiles on launchers. I hope it didn't proceed to transferring the custody of weapons to the Belarusian crews.

In any event, moving live nuclear weapons around during exercises is not a good idea. The United States, of course, did a lot of this and much worse, like having continuous bomber patrols with nuclear weapons (and a lot of accidents). Interestingly, France uses actual nuclear warheads during exercises but only within the airfield. My impression has always been that Russia is on the side of caution in these matters. Maybe not anymore. Some guardrails, however, still seem to be in place, like not flying with nuclear weapons.

To conclude, there is still a puzzle about the timing of the exercise. Why did Belarus start a day early? Note that the Chief of the General Staff said that the first part of the exercise, from 19 to 20 May, was a "snap exercise." I would say it is not entirely impossible that Belarus in a way forced Russia to add the non-strategic part to the strategic exercise it was planning for some time. I would recall that in 2024, Belarusian president in effect invited his military to the exercise that Russia announced. I am not saying this is what happened, though.

Much more important questions are, what happened to all those nuclear warheads that have been "delivered and transferred" to the units that can use them. Are they still there? They could probably stay in those "field storage points" for some time, maybe weeks. And what are those "conditions of a threat of aggression"? I guess we will know in a few days.

On 12 May 2026, at 11:15 MSK (08:15 UTC), the Strategic Rocket Forces conducted a successful test launch of the Sarmat ICBM (video of the launch). The missile was launched from a silo of the Dombarovskiy/Yasnyy missile division toward the Kura test site in Kamchatka.

This is the second successful test launch of the Sarmat missile. The first one took place in April 2022. The second successful test came after a series of failures. Two are known - the launch attempt in September 2024 destroyed the test silo in Plesetsk; the failed test in November 2025 was captured on video. There seems to have been a failed test in February 2023 (it was confirmed by US sources). There may have been another one, in October 2023, but it was not confirmed by a reliable source.

The program began in 2010-2011 and is seriously behind schedule (see an earlier post for the recap of the developments). The commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces reported to the president that "the first missile regiment equipped with the Sarmat system [will be] placed on combat duty in the Uzhur formation, Krasnoyarsk Territory, by the end of the year."

It is likely that the first missiles, probably two of them, will indeed be deployed with the Uzhur division by the end of 2026. It is also possible, although somewhat less likely, that the flight tests of the missile will continue.

On 23 April 2026, at 11:29 MSK (08:29 UTC) crews of the Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of an Angara 1.2 launcher from the launch pad 1 of the launch complex 35 of the Plesetsk test site. (Video of the launch). According to the official announcement, the rocket deployed several satellites for the ministry of defense.

No Cosmos designations for the satellites have been released. They received international designation 2026-090A, 2026-090B, 2026-090C, and 2026-090D and were registered by the US Space Command as objects 68826, 68827, 68828, and 68829. The satellites are deployed on orbits nearly circular 322×338 km orbits with inclination of 96.65 degrees.

By all indications, these are satellites of the 14F178 MKA type, similar to Cosmos-2591 to Cosmos-2594 deployed in August 2025.

UPDATE 2026-05-03: US Space Command updated the catalog to add Cosmos designations for the satellites - from Cosmos-2615 to Cosmos-2618:

On 17 April 2026 02:17 MSK (16 April 2026, 23:17 UTC) the Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the launch pad No. 4 of the launch complex No. 43 of the Plesetsk space launch site. The rocket and its Volga boost stage delivered into orbit several satellites for the ministry of defense.

There has been no official announcement regarding designations of the satellites or their missions. The US Space Forces registered ten objects associated with this launch as follows (see the 2026-05-03 update below):

OBJECT C decayed shortly after launch, on 19 April 2026. OBJECT E appears to be decaying and is likely to reenter relatively soon. OBJECT D may be the Volga upper stage. It performed an orbit-lowering maneuver on 18 April 2026, probably designed to accelerate the decay.

The active satellites are deployed in two groups: OBJECT A and OBJECT B are placed in the plane with inclination of 98.25 degrees. The satellites are deployed on near-circular orbits with altitude of about 495-550 km.

The other five satellites, from OBJECT F to OBJECT K, are deployed in near-circular orbits with the inclination of 96.95 degrees and altitude of about 547 km.

While the mission of neither group of satellites is known, one possibility, suggested by Anatoly Zak, is that these are radar-imaging satellites developed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya.

This launch continued the practice of not disclosing satellite Cosmos numbers or even the number of deployed satellites. In some cases, designations are released by the US Space Forces, as was the case with Cosmos-2600, launched in February 2026. But the eight satellites launched in the same mission are still listed as OBJECT B to OBJECT J.

P.S. The launch was observed in several cities in the North, for example, in St. Petersburg. The image below is from a Fontanka.ru story.

UPDATE 2026-05-03: US Space Command updated designations of the registered objects as follows:

Only six objects are identified as payloads. Their Cosmos designations are probably preliminary. Russia has not yet officially released satellite names.

On 3 April 2026 at 9:28 MSK (06:28 UTC) the Space Forces successfully launched a Soyuz-2.1a launcher from the launch pad No. 3 of the launch complex No. 43 of the Plesetsk space launch site. The launcher, equipped with a Fregat booster stage, delivered into orbit a satellite for the ministry of defense.

The satellite is deployed in highly elliptical 996x39714 km orbit with inclination of 62.69 degrees. It received the international designation 2026-071A and was registered in catalog as object 68571.

The satellite is believed to be a military communication satellite of the Meridian-M type (14F112, No. 21). The previous Meridian-M launch took place in March 2022.

Karelia submarine of the Project 667BDRM/Delta IV class is preparing to resume service after an overhaul that included refueling of the reactor. The submarine carries 16 Sineva/R-29RM missiles, each capable of carrying four warheads. It is based in Gadzhievo, in the Northern Fleet.

Before going into this overhaul, Karelia was fairly active. It took part in the strategic exercises on 19 February 2022 and on 17 October 2019. It appears that it underwent a major overhaul in 2004-2009.

The TASS report quotes the head of the All-Russian Society to Support the Fleet as saying that the submarine can remain in service until 2038. There is no official confirmation of this information, though. The submarine was laid down in 1986 and entered service in October 1989.

Image: Karelia during the 19 February 2022 exercise (Ministry of Defense video)

Accidents that involve nuclear weapons inevitably draw attention as they remind us that the nuclear enterprise is inherently dangerous. There is a good argument that nuclear operations are prone to what Charles Perrow called normal accidents. Scott Sagan covered nuclear weapons in detail in his book "The Limits of Safety." The book, of course, looked at US accidents and the lessons learned from US nuclear operations. It would be interesting and valuable to compare it to the Soviet and Russian record.

As one can expect, there is not much information about Soviet and Russian accidents. But there is some. I tried to collect these bits in a working paper that was prepared for a workshop "Nuclear Crises Revisited" organized by the Managing the Atom program in February 2024. Managing the Atom will eventually publish all contributions as a book, which will cover many other accidents and nuclear crises, from US false alarms to Berlin in 1961 and US-North Korea in 2017. It will be a very interesting volume.

My paper covers early nuclear weapons handling arrangements, Soviet approach to command and control adopted in the early 1970s (with the reliance on a deep second strike and then on a launch from under attack). Of course, I look into the 1983 Colonel Petrov accident and the 1995 Black Brant event. There were other accidents as well, for example, Soviet Union's own "training tape" incident in 1978, in which an early-warning center in the Far East (most likely Mishelevka) was showing a visiting party boss how the system operates. There was also a noteworthy event in 2013, with an Israeli Arrow test. My overall conclusion is that a reasonably good design of the command and control system and the assumption that a bolt out of the blue attack is highly unlikely can go a long way to preventing the worst.

I also look at some known accidents in which nuclear weapons could have been damaged. As far as we know, these were fairly rare. If you compare it to the US record, it is clear why. Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union apparently had never flown its bombers with nuclear weapons on board. Nuclear tests in which weapons were delivered by an aircraft were, of course, the exception, but in those the bomber would land empty. One known incident is the aborted test of the first thermonuclear bomb, RD-37, in November 1955. Because of the weather conditions the Tu-16 bomber had to land with the weapon on board, which almost gave everyone involved in the test a heart attack. This may have been the only landing with a live nuclear weapon on board. At least I haven't seen anything that would suggest otherwise.

Not surprisingly, the majority of accidents happened with naval weapons. The Soviet Union lost three submarines with 25 weapons on board. Loading operations, of course, were particularly dangerous. There was a missile fire in Vilyuchink in September 1976, in which a warhead of an R-29 missile was sent to the bay by an explosion. I also have oral accounts of other incidents. In one, a torpedo (or a cruise missile) was accidentally launched during loading on a surface ship. It safely landed on the other side of the bay (it was one of the Northern Fleet bases). In another loading (or, rather, unloading) incident, a missile caught fire while being handled by a crane. This apparently happened some time in the 1990s. I didn't include these in the paper since I couldn't find a documented account of these events.

There is also no direct evidence of the severity of the 2011 fire on the Yekaterinburg submarine. But the circumstantial evidence is fairly strong - it appears that the submarine had missiles (with nuclear warheads) on board at the time it caught fire.

The Rocket Forces had their share of accidents as well, although not nearly as many as the navy. There were two explosions of UR-100/SS-11 missiles in silos in 1967. Other than that, there are no accounts of problems with ICBMs. Interestingly, there have been no reported serious accidents with mobile ICBMs, although there have been accounts of launcher rollovers. I think there is even a photo of it somewhere.

Of course, it would be good to have a detailed official account of the accidents. But even what we have allows us to draw some conclusions. The main ones are: think about your command and control procedures, don't keep your nuclear forces on hair-trigger alert, don't move nuclear weapons around. Ideally, just put them in some bunker under lock and key, but we are probably rather far from this solution.

Image: Fire on the Yekaterinburg submarine in December 2011. Posted on the airbase.ru forum.

The Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the complex No. 43 of the Plesetsk space launch site (Ministry of Defense video). The launch took place at 21:59 MSK (18:29 UTC) on 5 February 2026. The rocket and its Fregat boost stage delivered into orbit nine satellites.

The satellites are likely to receive designations from Cosmos-2600 to Cosmos-2608. Their international designations are 2026-023A to 2026-023J, numbers in the NORAD catalog are 67674 to 67682.

As of 9 February 2026, the only satellite identified by the US Space Command by name is Cosmos-2600. It is deployed in a sun-synchronous orbit with the altitude of about 325 km. Remaining eight objects were deployed in two groups, in orbits with the altitude of about 500 km.

The satellites' missions are not immediately clear.

UPDATE 2026-05-03: US Space Command updated the catalog, indicating that the satellites received designations from Cosmos-2600 to Cosmos-2608.

New START, the treaty that limited US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals, will expire on 5 February 2026. So, what will happen next? This post tries to outline some scenarios of how the United States and Russia could respond to the treaty expiration. None of these are truly optimistic, but some are less pessimistic than others.

To recap, the treaty was signed on 8 April 2010, entered into force on 5 February 2011, and then extended for a full five years in January 2021. The extension was done by an exchange of notes between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Embassy in Moscow on 26 January 2021. Russia ratified the extension by a Federal Law, which entered into force on 3 February 2021. In February 2023 Russia announced that it suspends the treaty. The United States protested, pointing out that the treaty does not have a suspension option, and later retaliated, suspending data exchanges and other activities.

In September 2025, the Kremlin announced that

Russia is prepared to continue observing the treaty's central quantitative restrictions for one year after February 5, 2026.

The United States has not responded to this offer one way or another. President Trump said at some point that it was a good idea, but in a January 2026 interview said that "If it expires, it expires. We'll do a better agreement."

The main reason the United States has not responded to the Russian offer is that the US expert and political community has essentially reached consensus on the need to expand the US strategic arsenal. The arguments are China's buildup, "the two-peer problem," Russia's record of non-compliance, and optimism about winning arms races. The strength of these arguments can be debated, but at this point the momentum to ditch New START limits is very much unstoppable.

Nevertheless, there are options. The most optimistic one is that the United States will accept Russia's offer and will commit to adhere to the New START limit for one year. It is, however, extremely unlikely that the United States will do so, unless, of course, this would be a decision coming directly from President Trump. Still unlikely, but not impossible.

One problem with accepting the Russian offer as it stands is the absence of verification. It's not that the United States is in the dark about the status of the Russian forces, at least to the extent that matters. But verification is an important symbolic element of a treaty that can signal how serious a state is about its obligations. Ideally, the United States would make a counteroffer and suggest that it would be willing to stay within the treaty limits if Russia agrees to resume some verification activities. Data exchange and notifications, for example. On-site inspections would be even better, but these require a formal treaty, mostly because of the immunity for inspectors and other issues like that. But data exchanges are doable without a treaty. My guess is that Russia would refuse to resume anything, but it is worth trying. It's a reasonable ask and the United States could point at it as a sign of good-faith effort.

On the pessimistic side of the spectrum, the United States will declare that it is free from any constraints and proceed with what is known as "upload" - returning reserve warheads to its missiles. The US "upload potential" would allow it to increase the number of deployed warheads from the New START 1550 to about 3500 (here is a good post by the FAS team).

There are options within this pessimistic option too. For example, the United States can do the upload openly and report (with some accuracy) how many warheads have been returned. Or it can just keep everyone in the dark about its plans and specific upload steps. I hope that since the upload would be a largely symbolic step aimed at China, the plan will be made public, but it might not.

One interesting option, which is somewhere in between, is that the United States will note the end of the treaty, say that there are no obligations anymore, but then neither proceed with the upload nor say publicly that they will stay within the treaty limits. So, the Russian offer will be accepted but silently. This could create an interesting challenge for Russia, which would then have to decide how to react. I don't think this scenario is particularly likely, unless there is some kind of internal disagreement about what to do. But the United States can postpone any announcement until at least the NPT PrepCom session in May 2026.

As for Russia, I would expect that it will confirm its offer and pledge to adhere to the treaty limits for at least one year no matter what the United States does. There is really no downside for Russia in doing so. It would get to show itself "a responsible nuclear power," which could come in handy at the NPT PrepCom meeting and in other contexts. Then, in February 2027 Moscow would reluctantly say that it has no choice but to follow the United States. But it's not like Russia needs more warheads.

I don't think we can avoid the scenario in which the United States goes for upload. But as for the announcement of the decision, we will probably have to wait. One can announce the decision to go for an increase later, when the wave of anxiety about the end of a major arms control agreement has passed. On the other hand, the opponents of the limits extension rightly worry that if they let the 5 February 2026 moment pass, it will be more difficult to justify the buildup later on. This is probably the main reason the opposition to the Russian offer is so strong - the opponents don't want to let people get used to the idea that one may not need a treaty to keep the number of nuclear weapons under control.

Image: Personnel at Minot AFB demonstrate the capability to return a Minuteman III missile to a three-warhead configuration during a snap exercise in July 2020.