Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko stated yesterday, as reported by BelTA, during a solemn 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.”
