RUSSIA'S NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION POLICY FROM 1991 TO 2011: TWENTY YEARS SINCE THE SOVIET UNION'S COLLAPSE, STILL SOVIET

Abstract

On December 25, 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev handed over the “nuclear briefcase” to Boris Yeltsin. Eighteen months after the formal declaration of Russian state sovereignty and six months after his election as Russian president, Yeltsin found himself in possession of the symbolic key to the Russian nuclear arsenal.