Moscow. Aril 13 (Interfax-AVN) - No less than 2,000 warheads will remain in Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces by 2020, said Yury Solomonov, director general and designer general of the Moscow Heat Engineering Institute.
"Given the number of warheads Russia is allowed to have in accordance with the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, by 2015, to say nothing of 2020, the missile grouping of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces will have no less than 2,000 warheads," Solomonov said at a news conference at the Interfax main office on Thursday.
Solomonov also said that the future makeup of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces is defined on the basis of current international agreements.
He recalled the Strategic Offense Reductions Treaty allows the parties, namely Russia and the U.S., to have from 1,700 to 2,200 warheads by the end of 2012.
The previous agreement, START, limited the number of Russian and U.S. warheads to 6,000.
The Moscow Heat Engineering Institute is the chief developer of the solid-propellant missile for the Bulava sea-based system and Topol-M stationary and mobile ground-based systems that will constitute the core of the Strategic Missile Forces in the future.