“The system used to protect Russian nuclear weapons is ‘stressed’ by military funding shortfalls and is vulnerable to an ‘insider’ who could circumvent nuclear-missile launch controls, according to a U.S. intelligence report.

“The report to Congress also said thieves have stolen an unknown amount of weapons-grade nuclear fuel over the past decade,” according to a story in The Washington Times.

‘Russia employs physical, procedural, and technical measures to secure its weapons against an external threat,’ the unclassified report says. ‘But many of these measures date from the Soviet era and are not designed to counter the pre-eminent threat faced today