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Putin: Russia will deploy new Oreshnik missiles in Belarus

2024-12-06 22:52:59, Kosova & Bota CNA

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia could deploy new medium-range hypersonic missiles, known as Oreshnik, on the territory of its ally Belarus in the second half of 2025.

Putin said this in response to a request by Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka at a summit in Minsk, where the two leaders signed a mutual defense agreement.

"Since today we signed an agreement on security guarantees using all available forces and means, I think that placing systems like Oreshnik on the territory of the Republic of Belarus is a matter of course," Putin said.

"I think this will become possible in the second half of next year, until the production of these systems increases in Russia, and until these missile systems begin to be used by the Russian strategic forces," he added during televised comments.

Russia fired the Oreshnik missile for the first time over the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on November 21. Putin said at the time that it was in response to Ukraine's use of American ATACMS ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian territory with Western permission.

Putin has said Russia could use the Oreshnik missile again, including to hit "decision-making centers" in Kiev, if Ukraine continues to attack Russia with Western long-range weapons.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview published Thursday night that Moscow's use of Oreshnik was a sign the West should take seriously.

On Friday, Putin told Lukashenka that Belarus - which borders NATO members Poland, Latvia and Lithuania - will determine the targets for Oreshnik missiles deployed on its territory.

Putin said the new mutual defense treaty "will make possible the secure defense of Russia and Belarus," state news agency TASS reported.

Last month, Putin signed changes that lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons in response to a wider range of conventional attacks and expanded Moscow's nuclear umbrella to cover Belarus.

Nuclear weapons were withdrawn from Belarus after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, but Putin announced last year that Russia is deploying tactical nuclear missiles there as a deterrent against the West.

Lukashenka said in October that any use of Russian nuclear weapons located in Belarus requires his prior permission./ REL