The claim was made just days after the head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service said that the missiles and nuclear weapons have not been positioned in Russia’s client state.

by Kyiv Post | May 29, 2025, 11:51 am

A Russian RS-24 Yars thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile launcher rolls at a strategic missile forces base near the town of Teykovo, some 200 km northeast of Moscow, on September 22, 2011.(Photo by ANDREY SMIRNOV / AFP)

Speaking on the sidelines of Moscow’s sponsored international security summit on Wednesday Alexandr Volfovich, Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council said Moscow and Minsk had jointly decided to deploy Oreshnik missiles to Belarus by the end of 2025.

TASS cited Volfovich as saying, “By year’s end, I believe the decision regarding the placement of Oreshnik, which was agreed upon by our heads of state, will become a reality. These issues have been resolved, and the locations within Belarus have been finalized. Preparations are proceeding as planned.”

He then added, possibly in reference to Ukraine’s claims earlier in the week, “Let others think – perhaps abroad – that it won’t be in Belarus. But we know exactly where it is, and how it functions. Our primary concern is to remain confident and calm, ensuring the security of our peoples – Russia and Belarus.”

Oleh Ivashchenko, Head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, in an interview published by Ukrinform on Monday was quoted as saying, “The carriers [of nuclear weapons] are there. That’s true. There are jets, there are Iskander missile systems. But there are no nuclear weapons in Belarus. That’s a fact.”

Ivashchenko added that probable storage facilities were under construction which the Belarus president Alexandr Lukashenko had said would be completed to hold the Oreshnik but said, “…that seems to be wishful thinking. As of today, there is nothing of the sort, and it is unlikely that anything will appear.”

Despite Kremlin claims of stability, Russia faces soaring inflation, a shrinking economy, and a falling ruble – signs of deep crisis, warns economist Volodymyr Lugovskyy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced following a meeting with Lukashenko on Dec. 6 that Belarus had requested the weapons be deployed as part of the bilateral nuclear sharing agreement – which Putin said would be arranged for the second half of 2025.

Russia’s first, and so far, only confirmed use of the so-called Oreshnik missile was in an attack on the city of Dnipro on Nov. 21. The missile is thought by Western analysts to be a modified Soviet-era Soviet RS-26 Rubezh medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM). It has a claimed range in excess of 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) and carries six nuclear capable or conventional multiple independently re-targetable hypersonic re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

Lukashenko claimed in March that his country had begun to manufacture mobile launch vehicles intended to launch the Oreshnik and to allow rapid dispersal of the weapons to improve their survivability.

In November Russian Ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, warned in an interview with Sky News that the range and capability of the Oreshnik was such that it was capable of delivering precision strikes across Europe in a thinly veiled threat against those countries providing military support to Ukraine.

He went even further by saying its use against Dnipro had already proved the weapon’s capability and had resulted in London and others “taking a more cautious approach towards supporting Ukrainian deep strikes against Russian targets.”

(C)KYIV POST 2025