President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has commenced serial production of its newest hypersonic missile, known as Oreshnik, with confirmed plans to deploy the weapon system in Belarus before the end of 2025.

This move marks a significant escalation in Russia's ongoing efforts to modernize its strategic arsenal and is perceived as a direct challenge to NATO security in Eastern and Central Europe.

Belarus, a longstanding Russian ally with a 1,084-kilometre border with Ukraine and additional borders with NATO members Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, has already selected sites for Oreshnik’s deployment in conjunction with Russian military forces.

Preparatory work is underway, and the first series of Oreshnik missiles have entered service with the Russian military, marking their operational readiness.

The Oreshnik system, whose name means “hazelnut tree” in Russian, was first used operationally in November 2024 during a strike on a Ukrainian missile factory in Dnipro.

Defence analysts widely believe that the Oreshnik is an advanced iteration of previous Russian intermediate-range systems, likely drawing on the RS-26 Rubezh platform, but enhanced with cutting-edge hypersonic and manoeuvrable re-entry technologies. The missile is reported to achieve speeds of up to Mach 10—approximately 12,000 kilometres per hour.

Its capabilities include carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) and the option for either conventional or nuclear warheads. The range of the Oreshnik allows it to strike targets throughout all of Europe, placing nearly every NATO member state within its reach.

Key operational features of the Oreshnik include advanced mid-flight manoeuvrability, road-mobile or silo-based launch options, and a claimed near-immunity to current missile defence systems due to its combination of speed, unpredictable trajectory, and warhead deployment mechanism.

Russian officials, including Putin, have asserted that even a conventional Oreshnik strike could cause devastation comparable to that of a tactical nuclear weapon if multiple missiles are used in a coordinated attack. This level of destructive power, paired with its evasive qualities, has fuelled concerns among Western analysts and NATO member states.

The geopolitical implications are broad. The deployment of Oreshnik in Belarus is intertwined with recent shifts in Russian military doctrine and nuclear policy. In 2024, Putin and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko signed a security agreement that formally placed Belarus under Russia’s so-called “nuclear umbrella.”

This extension of Russian nuclear security guarantees to Belarus states that any large-scale military aggression threatening the sovereignty or territorial integrity of either country—including that involving conventional weapons—could trigger a nuclear response. This marks a formal lowering of the threshold for nuclear weapons use by Moscow, further increasing tensions between Russia and NATO.

Already, Belarus is hosting several dozen Russian tactical nuclear weapons, according to officials in Minsk. These deployments, and the planned stationing of hypersonic-capable Oreshnik systems, dramatically shrink the warning time for NATO and put key European capitals within faster and less predictable striking distance.

The messaging around Oreshnik’s capabilities is seen by many outside observers as both a demonstration of technical prowess and a calculated psychological tactic, pressuring NATO to reconsider the degree of support provided to Ukraine and the deployment of advanced Western weapons in the region.

Western analysts remain split on the ultimate significance of Oreshnik’s deployment. While some regard it as a revolutionary step with the potential to upend military balances by bypassing existing missile defences, others view it as mainly a rhetorical escalation, noting that Russia already possesses multiple strike systems capable of reaching Europe.

Nevertheless, the ability to position hypersonic missiles so close to NATO territory is widely regarded as an effective lever in Moscow’s strategy of military intimidation and risk imposition.

In essence, the deployment of the Oreshnik missile system to Belarus, coupled with Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine and security guarantees for Belarus, represents a profound transformation in the regional security architecture of Eastern Europe.

It extends Russian first-strike and retaliatory capabilities, lowers the declared threshold for nuclear use, complicates NATO’s defence calculations, and underscores Belarus’s deepening military integration with Moscow’s strategic objectives.

Based On AP Report