Vladimir Putin flaunts 'unstoppable' nuclear missiles for first time - as warheads now just eight minutes from UK

Russian state news agency Tass confirmed this marked the first-ever public display of the weapon.

Mr Putin has declared the missiles are impossible to intercept, with speeds reportedly surpassing 10 times the speed of sound.

Belarusian defence officials, meanwhile, have said the system has a range of up to 3,100 miles - more than double the distance between London and capital Minsk.

Some observers have suggested the Oreshnik rockets could strike London within eight minutes.

However, Tass offered a somewhat milder assessment: 11 minutes to reach a Polish air base and 17 minutes to hit Nato headquarters in Brussels.

The Oreshnik is not an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the US, but its range places almost all the Nato allies within striking distance.

Mr Putin has claimed conventional versions of the weapon could incinerate targets at temperatures reaching nearly 4,000C.

The system can also carry a nuclear warhead.

Experts estimate the missile measures between 49 and 61 feet in length with a diameter of roughly six feet.

Its weight is believed to fall between 66,000 and 88,000 pounds, with a warhead capacity of up to 1.5 tons.

The Russian premier said earlier this month that the Oreshnik would enter combat duty before year's end.

And Andrey Bogodel, deputy chief of the General Staff department at the Military Academy of Belarus, told Tass the deployment served as a warning against "Western aggression".

"Today, any good deed must, of course, be done with fists. Unfortunately, the world can no longer be organised any other way," he said.

"Here, the 'Oreshnik' isn't a weapon with which we want to attack, for example, Britain or Germany, but it's a message that we, above all, will protect our peace in this way. A way that will allow us to say that it's definitely better not to interfere with us."

Mr Bogodel then accused the West of repeatedly crossing red lines during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And the Oreshnik announcement came just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to Florida for crunch talks with Donald Trump.

Mr Trump insisted the two nations were "closer than ever before" to reaching a settlement - but he warned days earlier that the conflict could blow up entirely.

"Things like this end up in a third world war," he told reporters on December 11.

"Everybody keeps playing games like this, you'll end up in a third world war, and we don't want to see that happen."