Date Posted: 24-Mar-2025
Author: Alex Petric, London Sterling Anders, London
Key points
- Event: Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko for an official visit over 13–15 March 2025 for discussions on their “strategic partnership” and adopted several agreements, including the “Agreement between the Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus on security guarantees within the Union State”
- Significance: Lukashenko's visit to Moscow emphasised that the two countries' diplomatic stance towards their European NATO neighbours has become more proactive and asymmetrically aggressive, notably through the entry into force of the Agreement on security guarantees within the Union State on 13 March
- Outlook: Janes assesses, with high confidence based on high-level official statements and previous actions, that Russia will very likely deploy the first Oreshnik missiles in Belarus by the end of 2025. Over the medium (6–12 months) and long term (12–24 months), Russia and Belarus very likely intend to use the missiles' deployment for aggressive political signalling against European NATO countries
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko exchange Agreements signed at a mutual press conference on 13 March 2025 in Moscow, Russia. (Kremlin, Russia)
Event
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko for an official visit over 13 – 15 March 2025 for discussions on their “strategic partnership” and adopted several agreements, including the “Agreement between the Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus on security guarantees within the Union State”.
Throughout the visit, Lukashenko highlighted the progress on transferring Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) to the territory of Belarus. In a speech to the Russian Federation Council on 14 March, Lukashenko reiterated that Russian Oreshnik missiles will enter service with the Belarusian military by the end of 2025. The missiles will be located at a yet-to-be-disclosed military base in Belarus and will be operated by the Belarusian military, with servicing and training provided by Russia.
Significance
Lukashenko's visit to Moscow emphasised that the two countries' diplomatic stance towards their European NATO neighbours has become more proactive and asymmetrically aggressive, notably through the entry into force of the Agreement on security guarantees within the Union State on 13 March.
The Agreement stipulates that the two countries consider the defensive space of their Union State (joint territories of Russia and Belarus) to comprise an “indivisible space” and allows Russia to establish military bases and other facilities on the Belarusian territory. The signatories “shall use their individual relations with other countries and subjects of international law to prevent encroachments” on the security of their Union State. Janes assesses that this provision is almost certainly designed for Moscow and Minsk to allow themselves to exert pressure, individually or jointly, on both individual European states and supranational institutions, such as the European Union or NATO.
On 14 March Lukashenko, when speaking to the Russian Federation Council, stated that Belarus now only needs to decide where on its territory to deploy the missiles. In a separate statement, on 10 December 2024, he stated that “location will be chosen based on the minimum required distance to designated targets”.
The Oreshnik missile system was first used, as Putin announced on 21 November 2024, “in a successful test under battle conditions” in a “non-nuclear variant” against one of Ukraine's largest military-industrial plants in the city of Dnipro. Janes observed that video footage shared on social media showed the arrival of six groups of ordnance, each comprising between four and six munitions, for a total of up to 36. On the same day, the US Department of Defense confirmed that Russia launched a new “intermediate-range ballistic missile”, adding that such a missile “has a high trajectory and can carry large payloads”.
In a joint press conference by Putin and Lukashenko on 6 December 2024, the latter discussed “a threat to Belarus from Poland and Lithuania” and requested that “Russia deploy new weapons systems, and Oreshnik in particular, on Belarusian territory”. Lukashenko asked that “the Belarusian leadership be granted the right of target selection for these Oreshnik systems”. Putin replied that Russia is agreement-bound to use “all forces at its disposal” to ensure joint security. He added, in a statement that Janes assesses was intended to emphasise Russia's seriousness and intent, that Moscow “already agreed and deployed Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarusian territory”. Regarding deploying systems such as Oreshnik in Belarus, Putin stated that “this will become possible in the second half of 2025”, adding that this is “possible particularly as the costs will be minimal since Belarus retained certain infrastructure from the Soviet period”. He confirmed that the “right of target selection for the Oreshnik systems will unquestionably be in the Belarusian leadership's hands”.
For more information, please see Russia very likely to deploy Oreshnik IRBMs in Belarus by end of 2025, escalating threats to European NATO countries' industrial sites
