A satellite image captured this week and obtained by RFE/RL contains details that suggest Russia may be deploying a nuclear-capable, hypersonic missile system called Oreshnik at a fast-growing military installation on the site of a former airfield in neighboring Belarus.
Military allies Russia and Belarus have both said the Oreshnik, which Moscow has boasted about and fired at least twice -- without nuclear warheads -- in its war against Ukraine, would be deployed in Belarus.
They have kept potential locations under wraps. On December 30, the defense ministries of both countries posted video footage that they said showed an Oreshnik system being put on combat duty in Belarus, but they did not reveal the location.
A few days before the footage was published, US researchers named the former site of Krychev-6, a Soviet-era military airfield near the town of Krychau, close to the Russian border in eastern Belarus, as a possible location for an Oreshnik system.
Using a satellite image captured by Planet Labs on February 9, RFE/RL's Belarus Service determined that the video was apparently filmed at the site of the abandoned airfield, where previous images show that fast-paced construction began in August 2025 after the demolition of a charcoal production enterprise.
By 2026, images show, several new buildings had been erected at the site and the railway tracks and station had been completely rebuilt.
The Oreshnik is a mobile intermediate-range missile system that experts say Russia has developed on the basis of the Yars, an intercontinental ballistic missile that is larger than the newer system. It is carried by and launched from a vehicle.
Among other things, the February 9 image of the site shows six vehicles whose size and proportions match those of vehicles seen in the Defense Ministry 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 the US-based think tank CNA and one of the researchers who named the Krychau site as a possible Oreshnik location in late December, wrote on X that an examination of the new image "confirmed -- definitely heavy vehicles have arrived."
"I believe probably at least 2 objects that are likely launchers, maybe 3," Eveleth wrote.
Ivan Kirichevskiy, a Ukrainian soldier and an expert on weapons issues for the Ukrainian publication Defense Express, told RFE/RL that the images may indeed show vehicles related to an Oreshnik system. But he added that "it cannot be ruled out that the Russians can create fake military positions in this way. And this could be one of such fake positions."
Russia has been ramping up military cooperation with Belarus while pressing its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a war that has vastly increased tensions with NATO and the West. A buffer state for Russia, Belarus is bordered on the south by Ukraine and on the west and northwest by NATO members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
The Oreshnik is one of many missiles Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted in numerous comments that analysts say are aimed at projecting strength and sending 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 in 2024, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was a message to the West that Moscow will respond harshly to any "reckless" Western moves in support of Ukraine.
Jeffrey Lewis, one of the US researchers who named the Krychau site as a possible location for an Oreshnik system in late December, wrote at the time that its deployment so close to Russia's border would "not result in any increase in the reach of the missile system," noting that many areas in Russia and its Kaliningrad exclave are closer to London and Paris.
"The decision to base the Oreshnik less than 5 km from the Russian border illustrates the degree to which the deployment reflects political considerations, rather than an effort to seek some specific military advantage," Lewis wrote.
