Russia expanding nukes' arsenal, deploying air-to-air nuclear missiles: US intelligence

Russia is expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal and is deploying a nuclear-armed air-to-air missile, according to an unclassified US intelligence assessment.

The assessment has come months after Russia revised its nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold to use nuclear weapons. In the ongoing war with Ukraine, Russian leaders have often threatened Ukraine and its partners with nuclear attacks.

The assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) also said that Russia is training Belarusian personnel in the handling of nuclear weapons stationed in the country — Russia started stationing nuclear weapons in its satellite state of Belarus in 2023.

Russia expands nukes with air-to-air missiles

Since the height of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have not had air-to-air nuclear missiles. But that has now changed with Russia deploying an air-to-air nuclear-armed missile.

“Russia is expanding its nuclear forces by adding new capabilities, including nuclear air-to-air missiles and novel nuclear systems,” the US intelligence assessment noted.

While the assessment did not reveal the missile’s name, The War Zone has reported that this is most likely a nuclear-armed variant of R-37M missile, which it described as a very long-range air-to-air missile. The missile is called AA-13 Axehead in Nato’s terminology.

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While nuclear-armed air-to-ground missiles are fairly regular among nuclear-armed countries, such air-to-air missiles have not been used since the Cold War. The United States had one such missile, GAR-11, which was developed in 1950s but was retired in 1970s.

Nuclear-armed air-to-air missiles were originally made to neutralise bomber formations at the height of Cold War, according to TWZ.

As such bomber formations are no longer relevant today, it is not clear what motivated Russia to develop and deploy a nuclear-armed air-to-air missile.

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To be sure, such air-to-air missiles were ‘area effect’ weapon, which target a general area in which all objects within blast radius suffer damage. On the other hand, most weapons hit a specific target that they are launched at. Air-to-air area effect weapons can be useful in attacking advanced stealth aircraft that could be detected but prove hard to lock on for a targeted strike. Such missiles can also be useful against drone swarms.

However, such actions can be performed by conventional area effect weapons too. Arming such missiles with nuclear payloads is bound to be seen by others as an escalatory measure.