(Yesterday at 10:06 pm)Fireball Wrote: Little known fact, and classified at the time (I found out after that declassification, as I had no need to know at the time). When the USSR was crumbling, they sold the US a whole lot of enriched Uranium, as they were uncertain of control. Beyond that, I really have no comment.
This is true. When the USSR fell apart and the Cold War ended, one of the exit-ramps was the US buying much of their fissile material (along with the Budapest Memorandum disarming Ukraine and a couple of other SSRs of nukes).
I'm sure the fissile material the Russians still retain is serviceable. Their missiles, not so much. Unlike the warheads, the missiles must operate perfectly to be useful. Remember -- a stiff O-ring cost seven lives on STS-25, and that on what would be a warm morning in Siberia.
Nalevno is a thing there.
