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> given that Russia didn't lose any nuke in the chaotic 199x

Serious question (in more ways than one): do we really know that to be true? How?

Of course it's possible that some Russian nukes were stolen, and someone's been keeping them in a warehouse for the last 25 years, and we'd never know. But I find it likely that if someone had stolen a nuke, they would have sold it, and the kind of people that would buy it would have used it by now.

I'm making two assumptions:

1. you don't steal a nuke unless you're going to sell it or use it

2. you don't buy a nuke unless you're going to use it (for blackmail or to blow something up)

And (2) would have been easily noticed.

I think there's one other possibility. It could be stolen to study and reverse engineer. You're probably looking at state actors instead of random third parties, but enemies of Russia would probably want to see the level of technology they're using. And states trying to develop their own nukes might be able to learn a lot from having a first hand example.

I'd be quite surprised is someone who lost/had stolen and then recovered a nuc would admit to this taking place. I really don't think we would know if this had happened.

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