Wagner Group Wants to March on Poland, Putin Ally Warns
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned on Sunday that the Wagner Group wants to march on Poland during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin exiled the Wagner Group, a paramilitary unit that previously fought alongside his troops in Ukraine, to Belarus following an attempted mutiny by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin against Moscow's military leadership last month. The transfer fueled concerns about stability across Eastern Europe, including Poland, which shares a strategically critical northeastern border with Belarus. The Polish military has transferred troops near its Belarusian border amid threats that the Wagner Group could attempt to seize the Suwalki Gap and cut off the Baltic states from the rest of Europe.
The Suwałki Gap, a small but strategically important strip of Polish territory between Russia and the exclave of Kaliningrad, has long been a sticking point for Moscow.
Lukashenko, a close ally to Putin amid the Ukraine invasion who helped broker a deal with Prigozhin to end the attempted Wagner rebellion, said the paramilitary group's leaders are now itching to attack Poland, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin are seen in St. Petersburg on Sunday. Lukashenko warned that the Wagner Group, a paramilitary unit, wants to march on Poland during a meeting with Putin. ALEXANDR DEMYANCHUK/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
"We began to be bothered by the PMC Wagner, asking to go to the West. 'Allow us?' I said, why do you want to go to the West there? And quietly, we're in control of what is happening: 'Well, we'll go on a tour to Warsaw and Rzeszow,'" the Belarusian president said during his meeting with Putin, referring to the Polish capital, Warsaw, and a key military hub for the country, Rzeszów.
Lukashenko added that he is keeping these forces "in the center of Belarus as agreed" and that he would not like to redeploy the forces to Poland because they are "in a bad mood."
Newsweek reached out to the Polish foreign ministry and NATO for comment via email.
Video of Lukashenko's remarks were translated and posted to Twitter on Sunday morning by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs.
During his meeting with Putin, Lukashenko said that Wagnerites want to "go on a sightseeing tour" to Poland. pic.twitter.com/Era3hxgzx7 — Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 23, 2023
Javed Ali, a University of Michigan professor specializing in international policy and diplomacy, told Newsweek on Sunday morning that Lukashenko's remarks seem "like an empty threat" that NATO and intelligence "could detect in advance of any possible incursions."
"In the aftermath of the failed Wagner Group mutiny in Russia several weeks ago and the repositioning of Wagner Group elements in Belarus, an attack on Poland or any surrounding NATO country would be incredibly provocative and trigger Article 5 mutual defense obligations that would likely do grave damage to Wagner Group fighters if they made such an attempt," Ali said.
He added that Lukashenko's comment "falls in line with other bombastic rhetoric from President Putin during the Ukraine conflict about other attacks and threats that never materialized."
Lukashenko's remarks come as relations between Russia and Poland, which have long been strained, grew even more tense in recent days as Poland transferred troops near the Belarus border, with Putin accusing Poland, without evidence, of wanting to control its "historic lands," which he says includes Ukraine and Belarus.
Earlier in July, Russian lawmaker Andrey Kartapolov suggested Putin sent the Wagner Group into Belarus to prepare for an attack against Poland to take control of the Suwalki Gap during an appearance on Russian state TV.
"It is clear that Wagner PMC went to Belarus to train the Belarusian Armed Forces," Kartapolov said. "Not only and not so much. There is such a thing as the Suwałki Corridor. You know very well what it is. Should anything happen, we need this Suwałki Corridor very much."
Daniel Fried, the former U.S. ambassador to Poland and a distinguished fellow in the Atlantic Council's Europe Center, previously told Newsweek that the Wagner Group has "no chance" of a successful attack against Poland due to the strength of the Polish military and the United States' presence in the region.
Furthermore, an attack against Poland would draw a response from the NATO military alliance, as Article 5 of its founding treaty states that an attack against one NATO member shall be treated as an attack against all.
Source: Newsweek
