Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko has sent a terrifying message to NATO leaders in Europe. The 71-year-old dictator is a close ally of Vladimir Putin and has already allowed Russian military bases to be located in his country.
At a session of the country's parliament All-Belarusian People's Assembly, he confirmed that Oreshnik missiles had entered combat service in the republic. He denied claims they had been deployed in Slutsk, a town situated 105 kilometers to the south of the capital Minsk. However, the tyrant did reveal later how many of the deadly missiles Belarus had taken possession of.
In an interview with the “Yunashev Live” Telegram channel, he said: “Well, ten would be the maximum.”
Belarus shares land borders with three European NATO states – Poland to the west, as well as Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.
Capable of reaching speeds of up to Mach-10, the terrifying missile can be armed with both conventional and nuclear warheads. The system's most distinctive feature is its ability to strike several targets simultaneously on account of its multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).
Putin claims targets would be incinerated by conventional Oreshnik missiles unleashing a temperature of 4,000C, almost as hot as the surface of the sun, but the weapon is also nuclear capable.
An Oreshnik launch from Belarus could hit London in eight minutes, far shorter than the time it would take from its launch site in Kapustin Yar in southern Russia, according to Russian sources.
The Kremlin has only used the “game-changing” nuclear-capable weapon once – in a “test” launch in November 2024 against Ukrainian city Dnipro, without a live warhead, an operation aimed at scaring both Kyiv and the West.
The Oreshnik is capable of hitting targets anywhere in Europe, according to Russian data.
The missile's flight time from the Kapustin Yar test site (Astrakhan Oblast, Russia) to NATO headquarters in Brussels is 17 minutes, 15 minutes to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and 11 minutes to the US missile defense base in Redzikowo, Poland.
It can deliver nuclear warheads with a total yield of up to 900 kilotons, or in other words 45 Hiroshimas.
Putin has compared the kinetic impact of the Oreshnik to a meteorite fall, which is sufficient “to form entire lakes.”
“A sufficient number of these modern weapons systems simply makes the use of nuclear weapons practically unnecessary,” he said.