Elimination of R-39/SS-N-20 missiles

The U.S. Embassy in Russia announced that Russia and the United States completed the elimination of 78 SS-N-20 missiles (known as R-39 in Russia). This work was done as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program in a 12 year long project. Various reports suggest that all SLBMs of this type have been eliminated. This is probably true - there is no reason to keep these missiles around - but the numbers suggest that Russia did some of the elimination on its own.

In the initial START data exchange the Soviet Union declared that as of September 1990 it had 120 deployed SS-N-20 SLBMs on six Typhoon submarines. In addition, 31 missile was stored at the Nenoksa storage facility. That makes the total of 151 missile, although it is possible that some have been produced after September 1990. In the next START data exchange, in 1994, Russia declared the same 120 deployed SLBMs and 10 more missiles in storage - nine at the storage facility in Nenoksa and one at the Nenoksa test range. So, between 1990 and 1994 Russia eliminated 21 SLBM of this type.

The next round of elimination took place in 1996-1997 - 39 missiles were fired from Typhoon submarines in two separate salvos. Missiles had their thrust cut off at the 23rd second of the flight but the propellant would continue to burn up - it would be gone by the time the missile falls into the sea. The salvos were supposed to eliminate 40 missiles, but one SLBM refused to leave its silo. I would presume it was brought back to the base.
By 2000, when the current project began, Russia must have eliminated another 13 missiles, leaving 78 to the CTR program. But now it is all history.