Taiwan faces a “very severe” nuclear threat from China, a Washington forum was told on Thursday. Adjunct professor at Georgetown University Phillip Karber made the assessment after releasing a paper by Russian General Viktor Yesin titled China’s Nuclear Potential.

The paper, published last month in a Russian military journal and recently translated into English, concluded that China has up to 1,800 nuclear warheads. Previous estimates of China’s nuclear arsenal have generally put the warhead figure at a few hundred.