Russian storage facilities were massively overloaded, the security forces were over- stretched and accounting of warheads' movements and locations all but disappeared. Persistent reports suggest that 23 warheads actually went missing from one depot in 1992. Since then, though, conditions have improved, not least owing to U.S. pressure. All the same, while Russia's warfighting stocks of around 10,000 warheads are guarded by special troops, minefields and electrified fences, many of the storage facilities holding the rest are poorly protected. Besides, Russia has 1,200 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.
Most peddlers are small-scale thieves and scam artists with small amounts of nuclear material.
Secondly, Russian and Western intelligence agencies closely monitor them. They are even tripping over each other. Similarly, any terrorist group with a confirmed nuclear capability would immediately become a top target for almost every global intelligence agency and find no other country prepared to shelter it. With nuclear warheads crammed into overcrowded storage facilities, it is only a matter of time before there is a serious accident, probably involving a leak of radioactive pollutants. If these make their way into the water supply, then they could pose a health risk to rival the Chernobyl disaster.