Experts warn that the decline in the global stockpile of nuclear weapons since the Cold War has ended. Will there soon be more nuclear weapons in the world again?

The Stockholm peace research institute Sipri assumes that the nuclear arsenal in the world will soon increase again as a result of the current tensions.

Despite a slight reduction in the total number of nuclear warheads worldwide to an estimated 12,705, the peace researchers calculate in their annual report that this number is likely to increase again over the course of the coming decade.

The experts warned that there were clear signs that the continuous decline since the Cold War had ended. Without immediate and concrete disarmament steps by the nine nuclear weapon states, the global inventory of nuclear weapons could soon increase again for the first time since the Cold War.

The US and Russia have most of the nuclear weapons

About 90 percent of all nuclear weapons on earth are held by the US and Russia. According to Sipri, extensive and costly programs are running in both countries to replace and modernize nuclear warheads, delivery systems and production facilities.

The same applies to the other nuclear weapon states, which include Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, according to Sipri. They have therefore all recently developed or stationed new weapon systems or at least announced this. Germany has no nuclear weapons.