Satellite images indicate a possible location of Russian Oreshnik missiles in Belarus
A satellite image taken this week and obtained by RFE/RL contains details suggesting Russia may be deploying a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile system called Oreshnik at a rapidly growing military facility on the site of a former airfield in neighboring Belarus.
Military allies Russia and Belarus said the Oreshnik missiles, which Moscow has boasted of firing at least twice — without nuclear warheads — in its war against Ukraine, will be deployed in Belarus.
They kept Potential locations Under the covers. On December 30, the two countries’ defense ministries published video footage that they said showed the Oreshnik system being put into combat service in Belarus, but they did not reveal the location.
A few days before the footage was published. American researchers The former site of Krychev-6, a Soviet-era military airfield near the town of Krychau, near the Russian border in eastern Belarus, has been named as a possible location for the Oreshnik system.
Using a satellite image taken by Planet Labs on February 9, RFE/RL’s Belarus service determined that the video was apparently filmed at the abandoned airport site, where previous images show fast-paced construction began in August 2025 after the demolition of a coal production enterprise.
By 2026, photos show, several new buildings had been erected on the site and the railway lines and station had been completely rebuilt.
Satellite images of the military airfield near Krichau, Belarus
The Oreshnik is a mobile medium-range missile system that experts say Russia developed based on the Yars missile, an intercontinental ballistic missile larger than the newer system. It is carried and launched from a vehicle.
Among other things, a February 9 photo of the site shows six vehicles whose size and dimensions match those seen in Defense Department videos, as well as two hangars that appear to be under construction to accommodate the vehicles.
Decker Eveleth, a nuclear weapons and deterrence analyst at US-based think tank CNA and one of the researchers who mentioned Creshaw as a possible location for Oreshnik in late December. Written on X An examination of the new photo “confirmed – heavy vehicles have definitely arrived.”
“I believe it is likely that there were at least two objects that were likely launchers, and possibly three,” Eveleth wrote.
Ivan Kirychevsky, a Ukrainian soldier and expert on weapons issues at the Ukrainian magazine Defense Express, told RFE/RL that the images may actually show vehicles linked to the Oreshnik system. But he added, “It cannot be ruled out that the Russians could create fake military sites in this way. This may be one of these fake sites.”
Russia is stepping up military cooperation with Belarus as it presses its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a war that has dramatically raised tensions with NATO and the West. Belarus is a buffer state for Russia, bordered to the south by Ukraine and to the west and northwest by NATO members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
The Oreshnik missile is one of several missiles touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in numerous comments that analysts say are intended to demonstrate strength and send signals to the West and the rest of the world.
After Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in what Putin called A “successful combat test” of the Oreshnik missile in 2024, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, was a message to the West that Moscow would respond harshly to any “reckless” Western moves to support Ukraine.
Jeffrey Lewis, one of the American researchers who named the Creshaw site as a possible location for the Oreshnik system in late December. He wrote at that time Deploying it near the Russian border “will not lead to any increase in the missile system’s reach,” noting that many regions in Russia and its Kaliningrad enclave are closer to London and Paris.
“The decision to place Oreshnik less than 5 kilometers from the Russian border demonstrates the degree to which the deployment reflects political considerations, rather than an attempt to gain a specific military advantage,” Lewis wrote.
