By Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Moscow is likely stationing new nuclear-capable hypersonic ballistic missiles at a former airbase in eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe, two U.S. researchers have found by studying satellite imagery.
The researchers’ assessment broadly aligns with U.S. intelligence findings, said a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share information not authorized for public release.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear his intention to place intermediate-range Oreshnik missiles, with an estimated range of up to 3,400 miles (5,500 km), in Belarus, but the exact location has not been previously reported.
Deployment of the Oreshnik would underscore the Kremlin’s growing reliance on the threat of nuclear weapons as it seeks to deter NATO members from supplying Kyiv with weapons that can strike deep inside Russia, some experts said.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Belarus Embassy declined to comment. The state-run Belta news agency quoted Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin on Wednesday as saying that the Oreshnik’s deployment would not alter the balance of power in Europe and was “our response” to the West’s “aggressive actions.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the CIA declined to comment.
REVISED RUSSIAN STRATEGY
Researchers Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, in California, and Decker Eveleth of the CNA research and analysis organization in Virginia, said they based their finding regarding the deployment of Oreshniks on imagery from Planet Labs, a commercial satellite firm, that showed features consistent with a Russian strategic missile base.
Lewis and Eveleth said they were 90 percent certain that mobile Oreshnik launchers would be stationed at the former airbase near Krichev, some 190 miles (307 km) east of the Belarus capital of Minsk, and 300 miles (478 km) southwest of Moscow.
Moscow tested a conventionally armed Oreshnik – Russian for Hazel tree – against a target in Ukraine in November 2024. Putin boasts that it’s impossible to intercept because of velocities reportedly exceeding Mach 10.
Putin plans to deploy the weapon “in Belarus to extend its range further into Europe,” said John Foreman, an expert with the Chatham House who served as a British defense attache in Moscow and Kyiv.
Foreman said he also sees such a move as a reaction to the planned stationing in Germany next year by the U.S. of conventional missiles that include the intermediate-range hypersonic Dark Eagle.
The Oreshnik’s deployment would come with only weeks left before the expiration of 2010 New START pact, the last U.S.-Russia treaty limiting deployments of strategic nuclear weapons by the world’s biggest nuclear powers.
Putin said after a December 2024 meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, that the Oreshnik could be stationed in Belarus in the second half of this year – part of a revised strategy in which Moscow is basing nuclear weapons outside its territory for the first time since the Cold War.
Lukashenko last week said that the first missiles had been deployed without mentioning a location.
Lukashenko said up to 10 Oreshniks would be based in Belarus. The American researchers assessed that the site is large enough to accommodate only three launchers and that others may be based at another location.
U.S. President Donald Trump works to reach a deal with Moscow to end its war in Ukraine, which has been urging its Western allies to send weapons that can reach deep inside Russia.
Trump for now has rejected Kyiv’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles, capable of striking Moscow. Britain and France have supplied cruise missiles to Ukraine. Germany in May announced it will co-produce long-range missiles with Ukraine with no limits on their range or targeting.
HURRIED CONSTRUCTION
The American researchers said reviews of the Planet Labs imagery revealed a hurried construction project that began between August 4-12 and showed features consistent with those of a Russian strategic missile base.
One “dead giveaway” in a November 19 photo is a “military-grade rail transfer point” enclosed by a security fence to which missiles, their mobile launchers and other components could be delivered by train, said Eveleth.
Another feature, said Lewis, is the pouring at the end of the runway of a concrete pad that then was covered with earth that he called “consistent with a camouflaged launch point.
Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based expert on Russia’s nuclear forces, said he was skeptical deploying the Oreshnik would provide Moscow with any additional military or political advantages other than reassuring Belarus of its protection.
“I don’t see how this would be seen in the West…as kind of different from these being deployed in Russia,” he said.
But Lewis said deploying the Oreshnik in Belarus underscored how Russia’s stationing of nuclear weapons outside its territory sent a “political message” of its increased reliance on them.
“Can you imagine if we put a nuclear-armed Tomahawk (cruise missile) in Germany instead of just the conventional ones?” Lewis said. “There is no military reason to put the system in Belarus, only political ones.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth in London; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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