After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, assets of the Strategic Rocket Forces were in the territories of several new states in addition to Russia, with armed nuclear missile silos in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

The first Soviet rocket study unit was established in June 1946, by redesignating the 92nd Guards Mortar Regiment at Bad Berka in East Germany as the 22nd Brigade for Special Use of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command.

[3] On October 18, 1947, the brigade conducted the first launch of the remanufactured former German A-4 ballistic missile, or R-1, from the Kapustin Yar Range.

The 5th Scientific Research Proving Ground was established in 1955 in Kzyl-Orda Oblast at the town of Zarya later Leninsk, and finally in 1995 Baikonur.

[5] Also established that year was the 43rd Independent Scientific Experimental Station (Klyuchi, Kamchatka Krai) as an outstation of the Baikonur test site.

Two years later "Object Angara" was formed at Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast, which after another name change in 1959 eventually became the 53rd Scientific Research Proving Ground in 1963.

[6] From 1959 the Soviets introduced a number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) into service, including the R-12 (SS-4 'Sandal'), the R-7 (SS-6 'Sapwood'), the R-16 (SS-7 'Saddler'), the R-9 (SS-8 'Sasin'), the R-26 (given the NATO reporting name SS-8 'Sasin' due to incorrect identification as the R-9), the R-36 (SS-9 'Scarp'), and the RT-21 (SS-16 'Sinner'), which was possibly never made fully operational.

Tolubko emphasised raising the physical fitness standards within the SRF and in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Strategic Rocket Forces began to field the new UR-100 (SS-11 'Sego') and UR-100N (SS-19 'Stilleto') ICBMs beginning with the 43rd Rocket Army in the Ukrainian SSR, providing them with longer range and more accurate missiles.

According to a 1980 TIME Magazine article citing analysts from RAND Corporation, Soviet non-Slavs were generally barred from joining the Strategic Missile Forces because of suspicions about the loyalty of ethnic minorities to the state.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in December 1987, called for the elimination of all 553 Soviet RSD-10 and R-12 missiles within three years.

Minister of Defence Marshal of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeev, a former commander of the SMT from August 19, 1992 – May 22, 1997, played a major role in assuring funding for his former service.

Speculation over why Solovtsov was dismissed included opposition to further cuts in deployed nuclear ballistic missile warheads below the April 2009 figure of 1,500, the fact that he had reached the retirement age of 60, despite that he had recently been extended another year's service, or the failure of the Navy's Bulava missile).

[citation needed] After only a year, Lieutenant General Andrey Shvaichenko, appointed on August 3, 2009, by President Dmitry Medvedev, was replaced.

The current commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel General Sergey Karakayev, was appointed to the post by a presidential decree of June 22, 2010.

[citation needed] In 2020, the Strategic Missile Forces completed switching to digital information transmission technology.

[24] Female cadets have started to join the Peter the Great Strategic Missile Forces Academy.

[33][34] According to the RF MoD, the new super-heavy ICBM RS-28 Sarmat has entered service, it's designed to replace the aging R-36.

[59] According to the Federation of American Scientists, for the foreseeable future, all new Russian ICBM deployments will be based on the MIRVed version of the solid-fueled Topol-M "RS-24 Yars" and the liquid-fueled RS-28 Sarmat.