July 23, BPN. Alaksandar Łukašenka used his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on July 23 to threaten to Poland.
He said that Wagner Group fighters based in Belarus are eager to carry out an incursion into Warsaw and Rzeszow, the main entrepot for Western weapons destined for Ukraine.
“Rzeszow is unacceptable for them,” the Belarusian ruler’s press office quoted him as saying. “When they [Wagner soldiers] were fighting near Artemovsk, they know where equipment came from . . . Rzeszow is a trouble. Of course, I keep them in central Belarus, as agreed. I would not want to relocate them there. Because they are in bad mood. And they should be given credit for their awareness of what is going on around the Union State.”
He echoed Moscow’s concern about Poland’s deployment of additional troops to beef up security at the shared border with Belarus.
Łukašenka said that one Polish brigade is based 40 kilometers off Brest and another some 100 kilometers off Hrodna.
Two days earlier, the Russian president accused Poland of planning to seize Belarusian and Ukrainian territories, a baseless claim often promoted by the Russian media.
The Belarusian leader echoed that claim on July 23, stressing that the partition of Ukraine by Poland would be unacceptable.
Last week, a spokesman for Putin accused Warsaw of aggressive activities, according to RIA Novosti. The Kremlin was alarmed by the transfer of Polish military personnel to the border with Belarus, Dmitry Peskov said.
Warsaw, for its turn, has repeatedly voiced concern about Russia’s Wagner Group presence in Belarus. The presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland sent a letter to NATO earlier this month, urging it to respond.
Poland’s defense minister announced the deployment of more than 1,000 soldiers and 200 vehicles to the country’s east.
Last week, senior Russian MP Andrey Kartapolov suggested that Moscow was sending the Wagner Group, a private military contractor, to Belarus in preparation for an offensive on the Suwalki Gap, a land link between Russia’s Kaliningrad and Belarus in the EU’s east.
The Wagner Group announced its relocation to Belarus in early July after a feud with the Russian defense ministry and a failed mutiny.
Officials in Minsk say its mission is to train the country’s soldiers.
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