Russia to hold nuclear missile and Oreshnik doomsday drills on NATO doorstep

Russia and its close ally Belarus are set to stage nuclear missile drills next month right on NATO’s doorstep.

The joint Zapad-2025 war games next month will involve up to 150,000 troops, according to Western estimates. They will involve “planning the use of nuclear weapons and the Oreshnik” doomsday system, announced Belarus defence minister General Viktor Khrenin.

“This is for us an important element of strategic, above all, deterrence,” he said. “As required by the Head of State [Alexander Lukashenko], we must be ready for anything.” Russian Iskander nuclear missiles are already stored in Belarus. It comes after NATO scrambled warplanes as Russia shoots down West's F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine onslaught.

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Su-25 aircraft in the state which borders NATO countries Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, have been modified for nuclear capability. And the nuclear-capable Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile is due soon to be deployed in the country.

This “game-changing weapon” even in non-nuclear format can incinerate a target by unleashing a temperature of 4,000C, almost as hot as the surface of the sun, according to the Russians. A “unstoppable” hypersonic Oreshnik launch from Belarus could hit London in eight minutes, it is estimated.

Hardliner Khrenin hit out at the deployment of troops in neighbouring Poland. “What is most alarming is the decision of the Polish military leadership to create a grouping of more than 30,000 to 34,000 servicemen,” he said. “This is already a serious grouping, in our assessment.

“We must watch this very closely - and that is what we will be doing - and respond.” Two Russian units have arrived in Belarus for the war games, while some of Lukashenko’s forces have moved to Russia for the drills. There have been denials that the exercises pose a threat to neighbouring Ukraine, despite Russia’s ongoing war.

“We are not hiding the themes of the exercises,” said Khrenin . “We are saying that the main one is practising the defence of our territory by the joint regional grouping of troops. The event is planned. This is not some sudden decision.”

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin has closed the airspace over the missile test site from which he launched his notorious new doomsday intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine last year. It happens as his former speechwriter predicts the Kremlin dictator will go to war against NATO in the Baltics.

Airspace was shut around the Kapustin Yar site when the nation carries out tests on multiple new missiles, but it is unclear if the current closure from 4 to 8 August is linked to another imminent Oreshnik launch. New tests are expected and Putin says Oreshnik is now “up and running” in serial production, with the missile complex due to be supplied to his ally Belarus later this year. “We have produced the first serial Oreshnik system,” said Putin on 1 August. “The first serial missile. It has been delivered to the army.”

An announcement on 4 August by the Russian foreign ministry that it was abandoning a moratorium on deploying medium- and short-range missiles may be linked to Oreshnik. “The conditions for keeping the one-sided moratorium on deploying similar weapons are gone and the Russian Federation no longer feels tied to the self-imposed restrictions it agreed to before,” said the ministry.