Russia’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles have entered active service, says Moscow

Russia’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system has entered active service in Belarus, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday, as the US efforts to broker a deal to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine have entered a pivotal stage.

The ministry released a video showing combat vehicles that are part of the mobile intermediate range ballistic missile system driving across a forest as part of combat training. The ministry’s announcement followed a statement from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said earlier this month that the Oreshnik had arrived in the country. Lukashenko said that up to 10 such missile systems will be stationed in Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that the Oreshnik would enter combat duty before the year’s end. He made the statement at a meeting with top Russian military officers, where he warned that Moscow will seek to extend its gains in Ukraine if Kyiv and its Western allies reject the Kremlin’s demands in peace talks.

The announcement comes at a critical time for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. US President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort Sunday and insisted that Kyiv and Moscow were “closer than ever before” to a peace settlement. However, Moscow and Kyiv remain deeply divided on key issues, including whose forces withdraw from where in Ukraine and the fate of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the 10 biggest in the world.

 Trump noted that the monthslong US-led negotiations could still collapse. Putin has sought to portray himself as negotiating from a position of strength as Ukrainian forces strain to keep back the bigger Russian army. Russia first tested a conventionally armed version of the Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree — to strike a Ukrainian factory in November 2024. Putin has bragged that Oreshnik’s multiple warheads plunge at speeds of up to Mach 10 and can’t be intercepted, and that several of them used in a conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack.

The Russian leader has warned the West that Russia could use the Oreshnik next against allies of Kyiv that allowed it to strike inside Russia with their longer-range missiles. The Belarusian Defence Ministry said Tuesday that the Oreshnik has a range of up to 5,000 kilometres. Russian state media 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.

There’s no way to know whether it’s carrying a nuclear or a conventional warhead before it hits the target. Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometres. Such weapons were banned under a Soviet-era treaty that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019. Russia previously has deployed tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of its Belarus, whose territory it used to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Lukashenko has said that his country has several dozen Russian tactical nuclear weapons. While signing a security pact with Lukashenko in December 2024, Putin said that even with Russia controlling the Oreshniks, Moscow would allow Minsk to select the targets. He noted that if the missiles are used against targets closer to Belarus, they could carry a significantly heavier payload.

In 2024, the Kremlin released a revised nuclear doctrine, noting that any nation’s conventional attack on Russia that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country.

The threat was clearly aimed at discouraging the West from allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with longer-range weapons and appears to significantly lower the threshold for the possible use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The revised Russian doctrine also placed Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella.

Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades. His Government has been repeatedly sanctioned by the West for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory for the invasion of Ukraine. Russia's Oreshnik missile system is seen during a training in an undisclosed location.