THE president of Belarus dismissed Poland’s concerns about Wagner fighters supposedly moving near the border of Belarus and Poland as ‘madness’ after the Polish prime minister raised fears over the Vagner Group supposedly being deployed by Minsk there.
Belarus also rejected Poland’s claims that their helicopters crossed into Polish airspace.
The government of Poland had summoned the Charge D’affaires of Belarus to express a “strong protest” and demand that he “immediately and in detail explain” the incident involving two helicopters supposedly straying into Polish airspace.
The Polish military issued a statement on Tuesday morning, saying that its radar systems did not record any violations of the country’s airspace.
However, later in the day, the military changed its tune, saying that the two helicopters allegedly flew at a very low altitude, which prevented detection by the radar system.
But Belarus denied this, with the Minsk defense ministry on Tuesday saying that no such violation occurred, noting that without any objective confirmation.
“No violation of [Polish] airspace by mi-24 and mi-8 helicopters took place,” Defense Ministry of Belarus said.
The helicopter issue comes after the Polish government in recent weeks expressed concern about the presence of the Paramilitary Wagner Group in Belarus,
Where some of them relocated together with their boss Yevgeny Prigozhin after their failed mutiny last June.
On Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki alleged that the Wagner PMC is preparing a hybrid attack on their territory from Belarus.
And that more than a hundred Wagner forces have moved towards the area of the Suwalki gap near Grodno, in Belarus.
“According to our information, more than a hundred Wagner Group mercenaries have moved out towards the Suwalki gap near Grodno in Belarus,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland said.
The Suwalki gap is an area located southwest of the border between Poland and Lithuania, it separates Belarus from the Kaliningrad, a Baltic Sea Exclave of Russia.
He suggested that the Wagner fighters could pose as Belarusian border guards and help illegal immigrants enter Poland, to destabilize their country.
Poland then announced the deployment of 1,000 additional troops to their border and the near doubling of their military strength from 172,000 to 300,000.
Meanwhile, the U.S. seemed to disagree with Poland’s assessment.
U.S. National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday told reporters that Washington was not aware of any specific threat from Wagner against Poland or any other of their NATO allies but was closely monitoring the situation.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko last month said the Wagner members were getting restless and wanted to visit NATO facilities in Poland that support the war efforts of Ukraine.
But recently, he explained that what he said was just a tongue-in-cheek reference to Poland serving as a major hub for NATO’s effort to supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.
The Belarusian president also blasted Poland and said that it had gone mad over Wagner-related rumors.
He also insisted that Wagner forces were not deployed on the border.
It can be noted that a possible attack on Poland could trigger Article 5 of NATO which says that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against all nato members.
On the other hand, Russia had already declared that an attack against Belarus is considered an attack against Russia.
