The decision to deploy Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic missiles in Belarus is a direct response to US plans to station medium-range missiles in Germany, Minsk's Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Sergey Lagodyuk told BelTA news agency on Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed a security treaty on Friday, allowing both countries to use all forces and means at their disposal. After the meeting, Putin said that Oreshnik missile systems could be stationed in Belarus as early as the second half of next year, depending on how soon they enter regular service with Russia’s strategic forces.
”The decision to deploy Oreshnik missile systems in the territory of the Republic of Belarus has been made in response to the steps being taken by the United States and Germany to deploy medium-range missiles in Europe,” Lagodyuk said.
During a NATO summit in July, Washington and Berlin announced that the multipurpose Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile, and a hypersonic missile still in development would be stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany from 2026 onwards.
SM-6 missiles have a range of up to 460km (290 miles), while Tomahawk cruise missiles can strike targets more than 2,500km away, placing them within range of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other major Russian cities.
The move would previously have been banned under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, from which the US unilaterally withdrew in 2019, accusing Russia of breaking the terms.
After July's NATO summit, however, Putin said that Russia would “consider ourselves free” to resume medium-range missile deployments, and would adopt “mirror measures” in response to the US-German decision.
The Russian military carried out the first-ever combat test of the Oreshnik last month, using the ballistic missile to batter a Ukrainian military industrial facility in Dnepropetrovsk with multiple warheads.
The test, which came after the US, France, and Britain gave Ukraine permission to use their missiles in attacks on internationally-recognized Russian territory, was intended to demonstrate that “there will always be a response” to escalation by the West, Putin said afterwards.
Any Oreshniks deployed in Belarus will be operated by the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (RSMF), Putin explained on Friday. However, he noted, it will be up to Belarus to choose potential targets for the missiles based on its own security needs.