New horror maps posted on X show how quickly high-tech missiles could land in Europe if launched by Russia from Belarus.
Russia is believed to have moved several dozen nuclear missiles to Belarus, according to its president Alexander Lukashenko.
The nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile has a range of 3,100 miles and is capable of carrying six conventional warheads at ten times the speed of sound, meaning they could conceivably reach London in less than nine minutes.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has recently boasted to state media that the staggering speed of the missile means that air defence systems would be unable to shoot them down and that they could be as devastating as a nuclear strike.
The missile was recently used in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro although had little impact due to the multiple warheads not carrying any explosives.
The attack was seen as a warning to the west following their decision to allow Ukraine to use western supplied missiles inside Russia for the first time.
Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in Nonproliferation Studies, described the attack as “an incredibly expensive way to deliver what is probably not that much destruction.”
US officials believe that Russia only has a handful of the missiles, despite Lukashenko’s claims of several dozen being based within his borders.
Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, recently boasted that the missiles could reach: “the entire territory of Europe and NATO military bases in the Middle East.”
The map, posted on X by Anton Gerashchenko to his 621,000 followers, shows how vulnerable Nato countries are due to their geographic proximity to Belarus.
Ukraine could be hit in less than three minutes whilst Lithuania could be hit in less than two.
Despite the US mainland being comfortably out of range, a whole host of US military sites across Europe could be targeted in less than five minutes.
Such an attack remains extremely unlikely, given any attack on a Nato member would trigger Article 5 which states that an attack on one state is an attack on all.
Nato countries have a whole host weaponry at their disposal to respond with to add to the deterrence.
