Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Alexander Lukashenko before a meeting in Minsk on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE/GRIGORY SYSOYEV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL
Russia may deploy the Oreshnik ballistic missile systems in Belarus “in the second half of 2025”, Vladimir Putin said on Friday during a joint press conference with Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, according to Russian state news agencies.
The announcement followed the signing of a new security pact between the two allied states on Friday that included “mutual defence commitments to protect the sovereignty, independence and constitutional order” of Russia and Belarus, TASS reported.
“If I may be so bold as to publicly ask you to have the … Oreshnik deployed on the territory of Belarus,” state-affiliated agency Interfax quoted Lukashenko saying to Putin at the press conference. Lukashenko added that the recent Oreshnik strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro “had a certain impact on our former partners turned adversaries”.
Putin responded by saying that deploying the Oreshnik to Belarus would be possible once Russia had expanded its mass production of the missile, adding that while any Oreshniks deployed to Belarus would be part of the Russian military’s Strategic Rocket Forces, it would “obviously” be up to Minsk to determine their targets, according to Interfax.
Oreshnik, which Putin described as a “cutting-edge medium-range system”, was first used in combat to strike the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November.
The combat testing of the Oreshnik was carried out “in response to NATO’s aggressive actions against Russia”, namely the attacks on military facilities in Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk regions with Western-made ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, Putin said at the time, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Putin of “using Ukraine as a testing ground”.
Putin announced late last month that Russia had begun mass production of the Oreshnik, with several missiles now ready for use. Boasting that the use of multiple Oreshnik missiles for a single strike would be comparable in force to a nuclear weapon, Putin said that the General Staff and the Defence Ministry were currently selecting which targets to strike, but that they would likely include “decision-making centres” in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
