President: Belarus plans December deployment of Russian Oreshnik missile VIDEO

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has confirmed that the Oreshnik missile system will be placed on combat duty in December, speaking during a working visit to the Vitebsk region, Belarus media reports.

Lukashenko described the system in stark terms and framed its activation as a warning to foreign adversaries.

“Oreshnik is a terrible weapon. It will go on combat duty in December. For what? I want them (our opponents abroad) to understand that we can strike if things go badly. We’ll sit down with Putin, make a decision, and we’ll strike. So don’t provoke us,” he said, adding a personal account of events in eastern Ukraine: “After all, the war in Ukraine started with this. In Donbas, Russian-speakers were persecuted, killed, and poisoned. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Recalling past diplomatic efforts, Lukashenko argued that agreements reached on the Minsk platform were undermined by deception, which he says contributed to the current conflict. “It turns out there was no agreement. It turns out they came to Minsk to deceive Russia and us. They deceived us. Well, they’ve pushed things too far. Already two million people have died and Ukrainians have been maimed. What are you provoking? We lived fine — the Poles, the Lithuanians, and so on,” he said.

The Oreshnik is a recently developed Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile system, reportedly derived from the RS-26 Rubezh program. It is believed to have a range of roughly 5,000–5,500 km, to be capable of carrying multiple warheads (including nuclear), and to reach hypersonic speeds (over Mach 10).

The system is reported to use mobile launchers—heightening survivability and complicating interception—and Russia announced the start of mass production in 2025.

Analysts view Oreshnik as part of Moscow’s broader effort to modernise its strategic forces and to challenge NATO missile-defence capabilities.

By Tamilla Hasanova