The plant can process around 15 million tons of oil annually and produce approximately 5 million tons of gasoline, supplying fuel to the Moscow region.
Maintaining nuclear weapons is far from trivial. The Wikipedia page on stockpile stewardship goes into a bit of detail. But in a nutshell everything from the nuclear material to the electronics to the high explosives used to initiate the nuclear reaction degrade over time.
The US hasn’t manufactured new nuclear weapons since 1992, meaning they’re all at least 33 years old at this point. The US regularly checks & replaces all these components to keep them operational.
Russia is also believed to have stopped building new nuclear weapons since the breakup of the USSR in 1991, so their arsenal is at least as old as the US one. I’m not sure Russia would have been capable to maintain their stockpile the way the US has. Among other things:
Tritium, used as a booster, has a half life of 12 years, so needs to be replenished fairly regularly. It decays to Helium 3, which can hinder a fission reaction. So it’s critical it’s properly removed.
The batteries that power everything need regular replacing every few years.
The conventional high explosives used to initiate the chain reaction degrade over time, especially in high heat, and the close proximity to radiation from the nuclear core. These explosives are critical to triggering a nuclear reaction. They have to be very precisely shaped around the nuclear core, and the timing to detonate each piece of it is also critical. If they are even slightly degraded or the timing is off then you won’t get a nuclear chain reaction when the explosives detonate.
plutonium changes phases over time, so cores require occasional purification.
Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s when we had treaties like START there were reports that US officials inspecting Soviet missile silos saw standing water in them. The implication was that the Soviets may not have taken maintenance as seriously as the US did.
But the bottom line is we truly have no idea. Organizations like the CIA and MI6 might have insight into all of this if they have assets (like Oleg Penkovsky was) who are able to provide them with verifiable data on the issue.
I know there are many reasons a poorly maintained nuclear weapon may not function as intended. And probably a lot of them are dysfunctional rn. But the idea that none of them work is wishful thinking…
Russia is still capable of producing the materials needed for a war that has been going on for 4 years now, or rather 12 if that’s how you want to count. They’re still using midrange ballistic missiles and probably still have ICBM capabilities.
Even if the bombs don’t work as intended, they could probably manufacture a dirty conventional bomb with great ease.
Maintaining nuclear weapons is far from trivial. The Wikipedia page on stockpile stewardship goes into a bit of detail. But in a nutshell everything from the nuclear material to the electronics to the high explosives used to initiate the nuclear reaction degrade over time.
The US hasn’t manufactured new nuclear weapons since 1992, meaning they’re all at least 33 years old at this point. The US regularly checks & replaces all these components to keep them operational.
Russia is also believed to have stopped building new nuclear weapons since the breakup of the USSR in 1991, so their arsenal is at least as old as the US one. I’m not sure Russia would have been capable to maintain their stockpile the way the US has. Among other things:
Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s when we had treaties like START there were reports that US officials inspecting Soviet missile silos saw standing water in them. The implication was that the Soviets may not have taken maintenance as seriously as the US did.
But the bottom line is we truly have no idea. Organizations like the CIA and MI6 might have insight into all of this if they have assets (like Oleg Penkovsky was) who are able to provide them with verifiable data on the issue.
I know there are many reasons a poorly maintained nuclear weapon may not function as intended. And probably a lot of them are dysfunctional rn. But the idea that none of them work is wishful thinking…
Russia is still capable of producing the materials needed for a war that has been going on for 4 years now, or rather 12 if that’s how you want to count. They’re still using midrange ballistic missiles and probably still have ICBM capabilities.
Even if the bombs don’t work as intended, they could probably manufacture a dirty conventional bomb with great ease.