(VOVworld) - Nuclear weapons reductions remain slow and countries possessing them are continuing to modernize their nuclear arsenals.

US nuclear submarine arrives in South Korea (Photo: EPA/ VNA)

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday launched its annual nuclear forces data, which highlights current trends and developments in world nuclear arsenals. At the start of 2016 nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—possessed approximately 4,120 operationally deployable nuclear weapons.  If all nuclear warheads are counted, these states together possessed a total of approximately 15,395 nuclear weapons compared with 15,850 in early 2015. The other nuclear weapon-owning states have much smaller arsenals, but have all either begun to deploy new nuclear delivery systems or announced their intention to do so.