The Russian Aerospace Forces have begun to introduce the service’s first class of nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile into service, according to a report by the U.S. Armed Forces Defence Intelligence Agency. While little remains known regarding the missile class, it is widely expected to be a new variant of the R-37M – a missile class that was first introduced in the mid-2010s.

The R-37M carries a very large 60 kilogram warhead, around three times the size of those usually integrated onto air-to-air missiles, which provides a greater capacity to integrate a miniaturised nuclear warhead. If fired from high altitudes and at high speeds by MiG-31BM interceptors, the missile can engage targets up to 400 kilometres away. The R-37M is the world’s fastest known air-to-air missile class with a Mach 6 speed, and has the second longest range int he world surpassed only by that of the Chinese PL-XX. It is manoeuvrable enough to be able to neutralise small fighter sized aircraft. The integration of nuclear warheads onto the R-37M would allow a single Russian fighter or interceptor to neutralise full squadrons of enemy targets, entire salvoes of cruise missiles, or large swarms of drones, with each MiG-31BM interceptor or Su-35 fighter able to carry four missiles. 

The fielding of nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles follows a broader trend in the Russian Armed Forces towards using nuclear assets to asymmetrically counter the much larger forces of the country’s NATO adversaries. A nuclear armed variant of the R-37M could be particularly useful against stealth aircraft such as the F-35, which has been deployed in very significant and growing numbers across the country’s European, Arctic and Far Eastern borders by Western Bloc and allied states.

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