“I consider that the positioning of (Russian) weapons such as Orechnik on the territory of Belarus is possible,” declared the Russian president alongside his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, after signing a mutual agreement in Minsk on guarantees security.
“I think this will become possible in the second half of next year, when production of these weapons increases in Russia and these missiles enter service with the Russian strategic forces,” he said. “We will have set up serial production” and “at the same time, we will begin to deploy them on the territory of Belarus,” said the Russian president under the auspices of the presidential palace in Minsk, according to a broadcast on Russian television.
Nuclear threat
The Russian head of state has boasted in recent days about the characteristics of his experimental Orechnik intermediate-range missile, a weapon that can carry a nuclear charge and strike thousands of kilometers away.
The Russian army used this missile for the first time on November 21 against a Ukrainian city, with Vladimir Putin presenting this attack as a response to recent Ukrainian strikes against Russian soil using American and British missiles, while threatening to directly hit the countries that arm kyiv. The master of the Kremlin also threatened to strike “decision-making centers” in kyiv with his powerful Orechnik missile.
Concerning a possible deployment in Belarus of this weapon, “a certain number of technical questions must be resolved by specialists, in particular the determination of the minimum range, taking into account the priorities linked to security” of the country, he said. detailed Friday.
