Putin’s nuclear-capable missile that can reach UK in 11 minutes put on ‘combat duty’

Vladimir Putin’s nuclear-capable ‘Oreshnik’ has officially been ‘placed on combat duty’ amid talks between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump.

The ‘conventional intermediate-range’ missile system – which could reach Britain in 11 minutes – has now been moved from Russia and stationed in neighbouring Belarus.

This is a development that bolsters the Kremlin’s ability to deliver missiles across Europe.

A statement from the Belarusian defence ministry said: ‘This is what the ritual of the Oreshnik mobile ground-based missile system’s deployment looks like.

‘The Oreshnik missile division began combat patrol missions in designated areas across our country.’

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, one of Putin’s staunch allies – and one who has also embarked on talks with the Trump administration -announced the deployment of the system earlier this month.

It happened on December 19, but now it has been put on ‘combat duty’.

While the weapon remains in Putin’s control, Lukashenko boasted that it will ‘make him strong’.

Some Western experts have said that the move, which would make it a little faster for Russian nuclear missiles to reach European targets in the event a war, underscores the Kremlin’s growing reliance on the threat of nuclear weapons.

Two US researchers have said that, according to their study of satellite images, Russia is likely stationing the missiles and their mobile launchers at a former airbase in eastern Belarus.

Footage released by Belarus on Tuesday did not disclose the location of the missile system.

Instead, it showed mobile launchers and their crews driving along forest roads and specialist troops camouflaging the systems with netting.

The Oreshnik – or ‘Hazel tree’ in Russian – was first used in an attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November, 2024.

In an address to the nation at the time, Putin unveiled his new missile and claimed it travelled at 10 times the speed of sound and so it could not be intercepted.

The deployment was more to send a deterrence message to Nato than to achieve tactical effects on the battlefield in Ukraine.

A RUSI report on the effect of the Oreshnik – and what it actually represents in terms of a threat for the military alliance – said last year: ‘if Russia were entirely relaxed about the international response to Ukraine and the issue of European missile capabilities, it need not have “clarified” its nuclear policy by using a list of examples that have already been breached.

‘Far from creating ambiguity and reducing Nato/European ambitions, increasingly bloodcurdling Russian threats have largely been ignored.

‘If, as a result of this sabre-rattling, Russia’s adversaries assume that the sword will in fact remain sheathed, then Russia will have itself to blame – but this leaves open the possibility that it feels the pressure to escalate somehow with more threatening sabotage or disruption activity, or a more worrying conventional escalation against Ukraine.’ 

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