London CNN —Nuclear-armed countries are strengthening their arsenals and several have made ready new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapons systems amid rising geopolitical tensions, a new report has found. “While the global total of nuclear warheads continues to fall as Cold War-era weapons are gradually dismantled, regrettably we continue to see year-on-year increases in the number of operational nuclear warheads,” the institute’s director Dan Smith said. “Accordingly, there is a growing concern that North Korea might intend to use these weapons very early in a conflict.”Protesters against nuclear weapons outside the US mission to the UN. Moscow has continued to make threats involving the use of nuclear weapons in light of Western aid for Ukraine, and in May 2024 carried out tactical nuclear weapons drills close to the Ukrainian border, SIPRI said. “We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War,” said Wilfred Wan, the director of SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Program.

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