MOSCOW, April 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Strategic Missile Forces will have at least 2,000 warheads in use by 2020, a senior military expert said Thursday.

Yury Solomonov, director and chief designer at the Institute of Heat Technology, also said the country's sea- and land-based missile groups would be re-equipped completely by 2015.

"In line with the image of [modern] strategic missile forces, which is determined both in Russia and the U.S. by the number of warheads in use, our country's nuclear forces will have at least 2,000 warheads," said Solomonov, who is also chief designer of Rusisa's Topol strategic missiles.

He said that the land- and sea-based missile groups would be able to operate post-modernization without major changes until 2045, and that the plans, based on estimates made in 2005 and 2006, were realistic. The missile forces are in a privileged financial position, he said.

Solomonov said Russia would retain its "nuclear triad" of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, sea-based submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and airborne strategic missile, that can deliver a nuclear attack by land, sea or air without resorting to third countries.