Without rehashing the whole article by Lieber and Press, as well as the extended discussion in a following issue of Foreign Affairs, it's worth noticing that Putin is talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis without any of the obvious motives you attribute to Russian generals looking for a bigger slice of the budget, and that Arbatov basically agrees with the assessment by Lieber and Press.

Not even the unspeakable Secretary Flory disputes the main facts about the deterioration of the Russian nuclear arsenal, especially the assertion by Lieber and Press that all nine of Russia's nuclear submarines are sometimes sitting simultaneously in port.

The erratic quality of Russian satellites opens a lot of little windows of opportunity, and their communication links are especially vulnerable to jamming.  When Putin talks about the current situation as a technological equivalent of the Cuban Missilie crisis, that's part of what he means.

(I only posted on European Tribune out of admiration for Jerome, and the rest of it is just a sad joke.)