'It will fall in Black Sea': expert says Oreshnik missile poses no threat to Ukraine

Ivan Kyrychevskyi, serviceman with the 413th Special Operations Forces Regiment Raid and Defense Express expert, explained this on Espreso TV.

"If the Oreshnik is actually located on Belarusian territory, this is primarily significant for dictator Lukashenko. It's quite difficult to verify whether such a missile is really in Belarus. After all, from a formal standpoint, nothing prevents the Russians from creating a mockup of such a mobile launcher with a chassis and so on, but there wouldn't be an actual combat system with a missile inside. Belarus has also retained infrastructure from Soviet times that is colloquially called 'the barn.' These are garage-like shelters for Topol wheeled intercontinental ballistic missiles. So there's also the possibility that Russia lacks sufficient infrastructure to deploy the Oreshnik missile, and Belarus may have certain necessary elements," Kyrychevskyi explained.

The expert emphasized that these missiles are primarily aimed at Central and Western European countries.

"In the case of the Oreshnik in Belarus, we shouldn't fill in the blanks for enemy propagandists, because yesterday they didn't say this missile primarily threatens Ukraine. This missile, officially called Kedr, is essentially the same as the Yars, just with two stages instead of three. It's quite a peculiar Russian matryoshka doll. So, this missile has a blind zone of 700 km—that's the distance it cannot hit when flying on a ballistic trajectory. If you take this 700 km blind zone and project it from Belarusian territory, if it were launched in our direction, it would fall somewhere in the Black Sea. The Oreshnik is primarily aimed at Central and Western European countries, because the launch range there is up to 5,000 km, not at Kyiv," he stressed.

• On December 17, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin announced that the Oreshnik missile system would be put on combat duty by the end of 2025.

• Already on December 18, self-proclaimed president Alexander Lukashenko reported that the Oreshnik intercontinental ballistic missile is already in Belarus and entering combat duty.