1 / 3 Photo: Michal Dyjuk/AP/TT
An unusually large number of migrants, Belarusian helicopters over Polish territory and Wagner soldiers who may try to cross the border. Poland warns of several threats on the border with Belarus and sends more soldiers there.
NATO country Poland is to send another 10,000 soldiers to the border with Belarus, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said this week. One of the reasons is that Poland wants to stop the large number of people trying to enter the country – including what is feared may be Wagner soldiers.
According to Poland’s deputy interior minister Maciej Wasik, “all attempts at illegal border crossings have been staged” by the Belarusian authorities.
Tomasz Praga, director of the Polish border guard, says that the number of people trying to get to Poland has increased, although the situation is not “as chaotic” as it was two years ago.
Nuclear weapons and Wagner soldiers contribute
He refers to the situation that arose during the summer and autumn of 2021. An unusually large number of migrants from the Middle East tried to reach Poland and Lithuania, through Belarus.
Later there were reports that the situation was staged: People had been lured there by Belarusian recruitment companies. The West accused Belarus and Russia of organizing a hybrid attack, with the aim of destabilizing Poland and the EU.
Whether the same thing is happening now is difficult to answer, emphasizes Jakob Hedenskog, analyst at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the Foreign Policy Institute.
– But now that has been made even worse, he says.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, tensions between Poland and Belarus have increased significantly, not least since Russia decided last spring to place nuclear weapons in Belarus. And after the Wagner leader Prigozhin led a mutiny, some Wagner soldiers, following the intervention of the dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, have been moved to Belarus.
– Russia uses Belarus as an extension of Russian territory and as a pawn in its conflict with the West. Russia even wants to make it appear that Poland is the aggressive party moving troops to Belarus’ border, says Hedenskog.
– Moscow claims that it is in fact Russia that is vulnerable and that the West attacked Russia via Ukraine. It is a completely absurd position.
Undermining NATO?
Poland, as well as Lithuania, have warned that mercenaries from the Wagner Group may try to cross the border from Belarus by posing as migrants.
According to Hedenskog, it is not inconceivable that one of the purposes of the Wagner soldiers’ placement in Belarus is to create various incidents that in the long run undermine NATO’s Article 5, according to which an attack against one country is considered an attack against all.
– But if this attack takes place in a kind of hybrid form, i.e. not as a clear attack but more like an intervention where the purpose of the attack, and the identity of the attacker, are unclear, there may be a doubt about how the attack should be responded to. And the decision-making process can be paralyzed.
Parallels with 2014
Jakob Hedenskog draws parallels to what happened in Crimea in 2014.
– Should something similar happen in Poland without NATO reacting, it would greatly undermine the credibility of NATO’s Article 5.
The Suwalki corridor, the strip of land between Poland and Lithuania that connects Belarus with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, is also an important aspect, emphasizes Hedenskog.
– It is considered by military analysts to be a weak link in NATO’s defense of the Baltics.
Last week, the Polish government also stated that two helicopters from Belarus had violated Polish airspace. Belarus denied it all, describing the accusations as a fabrication aimed at “justifying the rearmament” at the border.
– The purpose of the violation may have been to test NATO’s preparedness and try to undermine the credibility of Article 5, says Jakob Hedenskog.
FACTSBelarus during the war
Two weeks before Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine broke out in February 2022, Russia and Belarus held joint military exercises, including near the border between Belarus and Ukraine.
In the invasion on February 24, 2022, Russian forces entered Ukraine from, among other places, Belarus, which meant that they were given the shortest possible route to the capital, Kiev.
The Western world’s punitive sanctions due to the war have also included Belarus.
During the course of the war, Belarus has periodically held emergency preparedness exercises. Russia has also fired robots at Ukraine from Belarus, which the country’s leader Aleksandr Lukashenko initially tried to deny.
Several air bases are used by Russian planes.
Facts: The Foreign Policy Institute, etc.
Read moreFACTS Suwalki Corridor
The Suwalki Corridor is a strip of land in northeastern Poland and southern Lithuania, named after the Polish town of Suwalki located in the border area.
The corridor is located where the distance between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus is the smallest. The corridor is roughly 6.5 miles long and strategically and militarily important because it is the Baltic’s only land connection with the rest of NATO.
The Suwalki corridor is considered one of the defense alliance’s weakest points.
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