Russia appears to have deployed its so-called ‘unstoppable’ nuclear-capable missiles, potentially bringing the threat of devastating strikes closer than ever.
On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry released a video claiming to show combat vehicles in an undisclosed location in Belarus carrying the Oreshnik missile system.
State news agency TASS said it was the first time the ministry had publicly shown the Oreshnik, which President Vladimir Putin has declared impossible to intercept, with speeds reportedly exceeding Mach 10.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry said that the Oreshnik has a range of up to 3,100 miles. Reports have suggested it could hit London in 'eight minutes.'
TASS boasted that it would take the missile only 11 minutes to reach an air base in Poland and 17 minutes to reach NATO headquarters in Brussels.
While the Oreshnik is not an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the US mainland, its reported range puts American allies within striking distance, meaning any attack on them could draw the US directly into the conflict.
The announcement comes at a critical time for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and insisted that Kyiv and Moscow were 'closer than ever before' to a peace settlement.
However, days before, Trump warned that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war could spiral into a world war.
'Things like this end up in a third world war,' he told reporters on December 11. 'Everybody keeps playing games like this, you'll end up in a third world war, and we don't want to see that happen.'
Andrey Bogodel, the deputy chief of the General Staff department of the Military Academy of Belarus, told TASS that the deployment of Oreshnik was an anti-aggression warning to Western countries.
'Today, any good deed must, of course, be done with fists. Unfortunately, the world can no longer be organized any other way,' he said.
'Here, the "Oreshnik" isn't a weapon with which we want to attack, for example, Britain or Germany, but it's a message that we, above all, will protect our peace in this way. A way that will allow us to say that it's definitely better not to interfere with us.'
Bogodel added that Western nations had repeatedly crossed red lines during Russia’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine.
'Literally, there are red lines associated specifically with the use of missile systems, even nuclear weapons. After all, remember the appearance of the missiles they launched on us – SCALP, Storm Shadow, then ATACMS,' the expert continued.
'They also used drones against our radiation early warning stations. As well as attacks against our bombers, and so on. This is all an attempt to see how high Russia’s nuclear threshold is.'
The missile system was first used on November 21, 2024, in a test that saw it strike a defense plant in Ukraine.
Once launched, the Oreshnik uses its rocket engines to accelerate rapidly until it reaches the upper atmosphere, where its first-stage boosters are discarded after fuel depletion, Matthew Powell, Teaching Fellow in Strategic and Air Power Studies, University of Portsmouth, wrote in The Conversation.
The missile’s multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) are then released, traveling through space toward their designated targets.
Putin has claimed that conventional Oreshnik missiles could incinerate targets with temperatures reaching 7,200°F, nearly as hot as the surface of the sun, though the weapon is also capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
Putin said earlier this month that the Oreshnik would enter combat duty before the year's end.
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