A new report has found an increase in nations expanding or renewing their nuclear arsenals.

The nine-nuclear armed states totalled over 13 thousands nukes at the start of this year.

But researchers say the reduction of nuclear arsenals since the Cold War is “levelling out”.

The report found nuclear weapons deployed with operational forces increased to nearly 4,000.

Meanwhile, the number of nuclear weapons deployed with operational forces increased from 3,720 to 3,825, the report said.

The nine nuclear-armed states the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea held an estimated 13,080 nuclear weapons at the start of 2021, The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual report released on June 14.

That number represents a slight decrease from an estimated 13,400 weapons in possession of these states at the beginning of 2020.

Of these, some 2,000 were kept in a “kept in a state of high operational alert,” meaning for launch in a matter of minutes.

The report also found global nuclear spending is around $137,000 dollars per minute.