President Putin revealed that he participated in the decision to produce Oreshnik missiles.

Answering questions at the annual end-of-year press conference "Results 2024", Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a test: If the West suspects the Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic missile, let them identify a target in Kiev, concentrate air defense systems there, Russia will attack with Oreshnik, and they will know how to try to intercept it.

The Russian leader stressed that there was no easy chance of shooting down or destroying the Oreshnik missile.

"In a few seconds, our forces will launch warheads. Missiles leave the launcher so there is no chance to shoot down missiles like Oreshnik," President Putin said.

Responding to the question of why the missile is called Oreshnik, President Putin said: "Honestly, I don't know."

The Russian President said that this is a new type of weapon. Oreshnik was created on the basis of Russian development. Mr. Putin revealed that he participated in making the decision to produce Oreshnik.

"Scientists, designers, engineers thought that something else needed to be done, coordinating this view with the Ministry of Defense. In the end, I agreed to participate in making decisions on whether to produce it or not, in what quantities, when and how," the Russian leader said.

Another factor related to nuclear arms control - Russia has announced that if there are similar threats to Russia's ally - Belarus, a member of the Union state, then Moscow will consider that threat to Russia itself, and Russia will do everything to protect Belarus' security, Mr. Putin added.

The Russian president said that 24 new missile defense systems are on combat duty in Romania and Poland.

"If the Americans decide to deliver, let them deliver, let them deliver THAAD. These are more modern systems, similar to our S-400. If Patriot can be correlated with S-300, then compared to THAAD somewhere it is correlated with Russia's S-400, but its characteristics are somewhat weaker," Mr. Putin said.