Russia could position new missiles at old base in Belarus, agency says | World

According to a source consulted by the agency, the researchers’ assessment largely matches the conclusions of the American intelligence services.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear his goal of placing Oreshnik missiles with an estimated range of 5,500 km in Belarus.

The exact location had not previously been disclosed.

The deployment of the Oreshniks would highlight the Kremlin’s growing reliance on the nuclear threat, as it attempts to prevent NATO countries from supplying kyiv with weapons capable of reaching Russian territory.

The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. The Belarusian embassy declined to comment.

The official Belta news agency on Wednesday quoted Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin as saying that the deployment of the Oreshniks would not change the balance of power in Europe and would be “our response” to the West’s “aggressive actions.”

The White House did not respond to requests for comment and the CIA declined to comment.

Revised Russian strategy

Researchers Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in California and Decker Eveleth of the CNA research and analysis organization in Virginia said their conclusions about the deployment of the Oreshniks were based on images from Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company, that showed typical features of a Russian strategic missile base.

Lewis and Eveleth say they are 90 percent certain that the Oreshniks’ mobile launchers would be deployed at the former air base near Krichev, about 307 km east of the Belarusian capital, Minsk, and 478 km southwest of Moscow.

In November 2024, Moscow tested a conventionally armed Oreshnik – called “hazel” in Russian – against a target in Ukraine. Putin says the missile is impossible to intercept, reaching speeds that reportedly exceed Mach 10.

The Russian president plans to deploy the weapon “in Belarus to extend its reach further into Europe,” said John Foreman, a Chatham House expert who served as British defense attaché in Moscow and kyiv.

Foreman also sees the move as a reaction to Germany’s planned deployment next year of conventional missiles, including the hypersonic intermediate-range Dark Eagle.

The deployment of the Oreshniks would come just weeks before the expiration of the 2010 New Start Treaty, the last U.S.-Russian agreement limiting the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons by the world’s largest nuclear powers.

Following a December 2024 meeting with Alexander Lukashenko, Putin said the Oreshniks could be stationed in Belarus in the second half of this year, as part of a revised strategy in which Moscow positions nuclear weapons outside its territory for the first time since the Cold War.

Last week, Lukashenko said the first missiles had been deployed, without mentioning their location, and claimed up to 10 Oreshniks would be based in Belarus.

US researchers have estimated that the site is large enough to accommodate just three launchers, and that others could be based elsewhere.

U.S. President Donald Trump is working to reach a deal with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, which calls for Western allies to send weapons capable of reaching Russia’s interior.

For now, Trump has rejected kyiv’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of reaching Moscow. The United Kingdom and France have supplied cruise missiles to Ukraine. In May, Germany announced that it would co-produce long-range missiles with Ukraine, with no limit on range or target.

U.S. researchers said Planet Labs’ analysis of the images revealed a rushed construction project, begun between August 4 and 12, showing features consistent with a Russian strategic missile base.

A “clear indication” in a Nov. 19 photo is a “military rail transfer point” surrounded by a security fence, where missiles, mobile launchers and other components could be delivered by train, Eveleth said.

Another feature, according to Lewis, is the rejection, at the end of the runway, of a concrete slab then covered with earth, which he described as “consistent with a camouflaged launch point.”

Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based expert on Russian nuclear forces, said he was skeptical about any additional military or political advantage Moscow could gain from deploying Oreshnik, while reassuring Belarus that it would be protected.

“I don’t see how this would be seen in the West as different from the deployment in Russia,” he said.

But Lewis said Oreshnik’s deployment to Belarus shows how positioning nuclear weapons outside Russian territory sends a “political message” about Russia’s growing dependence on them.

“Imagine if we installed a nuclear Tomahawk in Germany instead of just conventional models? Lewis said. “There is no military reason to implement the system in Belarus, only political.”