About a million thrillers have begun with the idea of one or more of Russia’s nuclear weapons being stolen by some villain — The Peacemaker is a good example – or a civil war in Russia raising the possibility of extremists gaining control of one of Russia’s nuclear weapons sites, as in Crimson Tide.

Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s short-lived coup attempt is understandably stirring up those worries again, with articles in the Wall Street Journal  and Reuters focusing on the West’s concerns. The Daily Telegraph reports that the U.S. government “was worried that Vladimir Putin would lose control of his nuclear arsenal during a coup attempt in Russia by Yevgeny Prigozhin.” On Saturday, a Ukrainian military group claimed that Wagner mercenaries intended to seize a Russian defense ministry warehouse in Voronezh Oblast that held nuclear weapons.

The U.S. State Department announced that earlier this month, the convened “a meeting of working-level experts from China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom to discuss nuclear weapons issues including strategic risk reduction” – emphasizing that this was part of a routine dialogue.

We probably – emphasis on probably – don’t have to worry about the current upheaval in Russia resulting in a stolen or missing nuclear weapon. The Russian government has all kinds of problems with corruption and incompetence, but so far, they have a surprisingly strong record of controlling and protecting their nuclear weapons. Way back in 1997, former Russian national security advisor Alexander Lebed claimed that the Russian military had lost track of upwards of 100 nuclear suitcase bombs. Somehow, in the past 26 years, none of those nuclear suitcase bombs have ever been found — at least as far as those of us in the general public know — and thankfully none have ever detonated.

Back in 1998, the then-commander in chief of U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Air Force general Gen. Eugene E. Habiger, inspected Russian nuclear weapons sites and determined that in some ways, the Russian sites were arguably more secure than ours:

Three-Person Policy

“I was shown a lot of things that I was impressed with.

“For example, in the United States we have a two-person policy involving nuclear weapons. In other words, you have to have a minimum of two people in order to get close to a nuclear weapon. In Russia it’s the three-person policy. … I’m talking about access to a nuclear weapon itself. The launching of a nuclear weapon is very complicated. It is very–the controls are very robust. There are a lot of safeguards built in. Trust me. …

“At our [weapon storage] sites, you need two people to go do that, who understand what they are doing, whatever tasks they are going to do. In Russia you need three people. And, oh, by the way, in Russia, when you open up that igloo, you have to have a written order signed by the full colonel, who is the special technical unit commander, whereas we don’t have those specific kinds of requirements.”

Other Safeguards

“In the United States, we have a thing called a personnel reliability program where we monitor our people medically for any kind of abnormal behavior that would make them unstable around nuclear weapons. The Russians do not have a program that’s exactly like ours, but they have a similar program. Before missile crew members or before security personnel go on their alert tours, which are three- or four-day cycles, they are personally interviewed by a medical doctor and a psychologist.

“I actually saw a demonstration of the capability of their security forces. It was not something that was planned; it was something that I asked for at the spur of the moment, and I was very impressed with these nine young men, the security force that was tasked with guarding this particular facility. The detachment of nine individuals was commanded by a senior lieutenant, all very professional. They knew what they were doing.”

Now, 1998 was a long time ago, and no doubt aspects of the Russian nuclear weapons programs have changed since then. But in 1998, the Russians had an estimated 20,000 nuclear weapons across 90 sites, and today they are estimated to have just under 6,000. Since the end of the Cold War, the Russians severe economic upheaval, a sustained recession and a financial collapse; sweeping reductions in the size of the Russian military; the rise of a spectacularly brutal and bloody national mafia; the rise of often corrupt and ruthless oligarchs, two wars in Chechnya, an invasion of Georgia, the occupation of Crimea, and the invasion of Ukraine. Few other countries have experienced the tumult of modern Russia.

During the past three decades, there have been no shortage of terrorist groups, extremists, and maniacs who would love to get their hands on a nuclear weapon. And yet, so far, no terrorist has ever managed to buy, steal, or smuggle a Russian nuke.

We know there have been attempts; in 2000, Valentin Ivanov, the former Russian deputy atomic minister, said there had been 23 attempts to steal fissile material from nuclear sites. All but two occurred between 1991 and 1995. A few years later, Russian officials said that radioactive material had been stolen from Russian nuclear sites, but that it had all been recovered. American intelligence officials had their doubts about that confident assertion. But again, that radioactive material has thankfully never reappeared in the form of a dirty bomb in a terrorist attack.

Whatever other flaws the Russian military has, those who are in charge of safeguarding the Russian nuclear arsenal take their duties seriously and recognize the long-term consequences of even one nuclear weapon ending up in the hands of someone crazy enough to use it. No doubt Russians recognize that any entity willing to buy a black market nuclear weapon could always turn around and sell it to the Chechens or some other Russian enemy, who could try to set it off in Red Square.

If a malevolent figure or force was really determined to get their hands on a nuclear weapon, there are (at least) six cases of nuclear weapons being lost and never recovered. Most recently, in 1989, the Soviet a Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarine, the Komsomolets, caught fire and sank about 300 miles north of the Norwegian coast. In addition to the nuclear reactor, the submarine was carrying two nuclear-armed torpedoes that were never recovered.