Russia’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles now in active service, says Moscow
The defence ministry released a video showing vehicles that are part of the mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile system driving in a forest.
Russia’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system has entered active service in Belarus, Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday, as US efforts to broker a deal to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine have entered a pivotal stage.
The ministry released a video showing combat vehicles that are part of the mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile system driving across a forest as part of combat training.
The ministry’s announcement followed a statement from Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, who said earlier this month that the Oreshnik had arrived in the country.
Mr Lukashenko said that up to 10 such missile systems would be stationed in Belarus.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that the Oreshnik would enter combat duty before the year’s end.
He made the statement at a meeting with top Russian military officers, where he warned that Moscow would seek to extend its gains in Ukraine if Kyiv and its western allies rejected the Kremlin’s demands in peace talks.
The announcement comes at a critical time for Russia-Ukraine peace talks.
US president Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at his Florida resort on Sunday and insisted that Kyiv and Moscow were “closer than ever before” to a peace settlement.
But Moscow and Kyiv remain deeply divided on key issues, including whose forces withdraw from where in Ukraine and the fate of
Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the 10 biggest in the world.
Mr Trump noted that the months-long US-led negotiations could still collapse.
Mr Putin has sought to portray himself as negotiating from a position of strength as Ukrainian forces strain to keep back the bigger Russian army.
Russia first tested a conventionally armed version of the Oreshnik to strike a Ukrainian factory in November 2024.
Mr Putin has bragged that Oreshnik’s multiple warheads plunge at speeds of up to Mach 10 and cannot be intercepted, and that several of them used in a conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack.
The Russian leader has warned the West that Russia could use the Oreshnik next against allies of Kyiv that allowed it to strike inside Russia with their longer-range missiles.
The Belarusian defence ministry said on Tuesday that the Oreshnik had a range of up to 3,100 miles (5,000km).
Russian state media boasted that it would take the missile only 11 minutes to reach an air base in Poland and 17 minutes to reach Nato headquarters in Brussels.
There was no way to know whether it was carrying a nuclear or a conventional warhead before it hits the target.
Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 310 to 3,400 miles (500 to 5,500km).
Such weapons were banned under a Soviet-era treaty that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019.
Russia has previously deployed tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of its neighbour Belarus, whose land it used to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Mr Lukashenko has said that his country has several dozen Russian tactical nuclear weapons.
