Belarus on Schedule for 2025 Deployment of Oreshnik Hypersonic Missiles

July 5—Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko stated yesterday, as reported by BelTA, during an assembly held in anticipation of Belarus’s July 3 Independence Day, that the planned deployment of the Oreshnik hypersonic missiles is on schedule, to be completed by the end of the year. He explained that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed earlier, in Volgograd, “that the first Oreshnik positions will be in Belarus. You have seen Oreshnik’s work. These missiles can deliver as much damage as nuclear weapons. Only without polluting the territory and the air with radiation. By the end of the year the weapon will be deployed in Belarus.”

Lukashenko’s reference to Oreshnik’s work was to Russia’s testing an Oreshnik last year, striking a Ukrainian military factory with a non-nuclear, but massive impact. He added: “Naturally, the strike will not use the nukes. It will be so as long as I am the President. If you elect another, you may follow a different policy. But I will do everything in order to have state-of-the-art weapons here.”

Lukashenko also addressed concerns heard in Belarus that he was deploying nuclear weapons there and by doing so making Belarus a target. He said that he’s convinced that this confusion was being promulgated from outside the country. His decision to deploy wasn’t made “in order to toy with it and amuse you. As the president and the commander-in-chief, I don’t want someone to attack my country like it happened in the past. And I plainly told representatives of the United States of America: nuclear weapons stay quiet and calm, they are protected as they are supposed to be, but God forbid if you step onto our soil without our knowledge. The answer will be instant, instantaneous and with the weapon that you are afraid of the most. Do you understand it? They said they did.”