Global nuclear risks build up: Here’s the list of top 9 countries with nuclear arms in 2025

Besides the top 9 nations, there lies potential for more states in East Asia, Europe, and Middle East to develop their own nuclear weapons in the near future.

By: Express Web Desk

New Delhi | Updated: June 17, 2025 10:50 AM IST

3 min read

Russia and USA together possess around 90 per cent of all nuclear weapons. (AP Photo)

A “dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened,” the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) stated in its Yearbook 2025, as almost all the nine nuclear-armed states continued intensive nuclear modernization programmes in 2024, upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions.

In its annual assessment of the state of armaments, disarmament and international security, SIPRI revealed India to be possessing 180 nuclear stored warheads as of January 2025, while Pakistan has an estimated 170.

Meanwhile, China has 600 nuclear warheads as of January 2025, of which 24 are deployed warheads or those placed on missiles or located on bases with operational forces.

Also Read | India has more nukes than Pakistan, China far ahead: SIPRI report

Nuclear-armed states around the world

The nine nuclear-armed states include the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel.

The Yearbook highlights that of the total global inventory of an estimated 12,241 warheads in January 2025, about 9,614 were in military stockpiles for potential usage.

An estimated 3,912 of these warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft and the rest were kept in central storage, as per the SIPRI report. Around 2,100 of the deployed warheads were kept in a state of high operational alert on ballistic missiles. Mostly all of these warheads belonged to Russia or the USA. Both these countries together possess around 90 per cent of all nuclear weapons, the report noted.

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Here’s the list of top 9 countries currently possessing nuclear weapons:

S. No.	Country	Total Inventory (2024)	Total Inventory (2025)
1	United States	5328	5177
2	Russia	5580	5459
3	United Kingdom	225	225
4	France	290	290
5	China	500	600
6	India	172	180
7	Pakistan	170	170
8	North Korea	50	50
9	Israel	90	90

The list concludes the total inventory, which includes both stockpiled and retired warheads, to be 12, 241, in 2025. Here, military stockpile refers to all deployed warheads as well as warheads in central storage that could potentially be deployed. Whereas, retired warheads include those that have been retired from the military stockpile but have not yet been dismantled.

Besides the top 9 nations, there lies potential for more states in East Asia, Europe, and Middle East to develop their own nuclear weapons in the near future.

Hans M. Kristensen, Associate Senior Fellow with SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme and Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), said: “The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the cold war, is coming to an end.” “Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements,” Kristensen added.

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