Bet

 

How do we know Russian nukes aren't in a state of disrepair like the rest of their military?

There was a “whistleblower” message that appeared from somewhere deep inside some Russian security organization which said a few key things about this.

You can read a copy of that letter here:

Steve Baker's answer to What do the Russian security agencies (FSB) think about the war in Ukraine?

To save you time…

Bullet points 30, 31 and 32 say:

• From the cynical, I will only add that I do not believe that VV Putin will press the red button to destroy the whole world.
• Firstly, there is more than one person making a decision, at least someone will jump off. And there are a lot of people there - there is no "one-man red button".
• Secondly, there are some doubts that everything is functioning successfully there. Experience shows that the greater the transparency and control, the easier it is to identify shortcomings. And where it is not clear who controls and how, but always bravura reports - everything is always wrong there. I'm not sure if the red button system works as advertised. In addition, the plutonium charge must be changed every 10 years.

The authenticity of this document has been debated ad nauseum - but the general consensus is that it’s genuine. The language (in the original Russian) is convincing - and there are a few things he seems to know about their security organization that some random person on the Internet wouldn’t have known.

CONCLUSION:

It is definitely plausible that their nuclear capability is severely compromised - and would either fail to do much damage - or might not actually be launched at all (unless the US launched first of course).

However, I wouldn’t want to bet on that.