MINSK, December 10. /TASS/. About 30 sites in Belarus are capable of hosting the Oresnik missile, the country’s President Alexander Lukashenko said during a trip to the city of Borisov.

"We are currently thinking about where to deploy this weapon. We have some sites where strategic nuclear weapons used to be deployed," he said, as cited by the BelTA news agency.

Lukashenko noted that Belarus had "about 30 such sites." "Now, we will choose, making sure that the distance to potential targets is as short as possible. We will deploy and aim [the missile]," he added.

Lukashenko announced following the December 6 meeting of the Supreme Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus that he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to deploy Oreshnik missiles to Belarus. Putin stated that it could be done in the second half of 2025. The Belarusian Defense Ministry stressed that the decision to deploy Oreshnik missiles to the country had come in response to the steps by Germany and the United States to deploy intermediate-range missiles to Europe.