Formal heads of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation: Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin.
The Defense Express publication does not exclude that the statement of the formal head of the Republic of Belarus may be either partially true or complete “disinformation”.
The statement of the self-proclaimed leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko about work on the Oreshnik missile launcher may be either real or misleading for the purpose of disinformation. This is reported by the Ukrainian specialized publication Defense Express.
The media recalled that the leader of the ruling regime of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko stated that Belarus is allegedly manufacturing launchers for Oreshnik. Moreover, the manufacture of several launchers is already “completed”.
The publication notes that a short video of the tests in Minsk of a six-axle chassis, the purpose of which is not publicly disclosed, recently appeared on the Internet. Despite the fact that the time of action in the video is not disclosed, it can be assumed that it could have recorded the testing of the chassis for the launcher of the Russian medium-range ballistic missile Oreshnik, aka Kedr.
At the same time, the Belarusian defense enterprise Minsk Wheeled Tractor Plant is a manufacturer of chassis for several types of missile systems used in the Russian armed forces. We are talking about the Iskander OTRK, the Bal (for the Kh-35U) and Bastion coastal missile systems, the A-222 Bereg coastal artillery complex, the S-400 air defense system antenna post, and other systems.
Given the available images in the public domain, it can be concluded that the use of a special chassis from the Belarusian MKZT was also envisaged within the framework of the RS-26 Rubizh medium-range ballistic missile project, which the Russian Federation officially “suspended” in 2018, and which in fact served as a base for Oreshnik.
However, the basis for comparison is narrowed by the fact that the Russians and Belarusians themselves “shone” only as a running model in at least two configurations of the RS-26 Rubizh, and not a mobile launcher in the final configuration; because even within the framework of this publication, you can see available images of a running model for the RS-26 “Rubizh”, where the chassis has 8 axles, and in another version – 6 axles.
The media notes that there are two possible options:
Lukashenko’s statement was true, but the nuance is that there is no finished product yet, and the chassis is only undergoing “running-in”;
the Russians deliberately resorted to disinformation by “dumping” a video about the chassis, which in theory may not be related to the story with the Oreshnik missile system at all, because understanding the mass-dimension parameters of the mobile launcher can provide an understanding of the mass-dimension parameters of the missile itself.
