Threat to Polish government
Putin: Attack on Belarus equals attack on Russia
07/21/2023, 4:07 p.m
The Russian Wagner mercenaries have been in Belarus since their failed mutiny. This causes concern among Germany’s neighbors and NATO partner Poland. However, the Russian head of state Putin sees new provocations in troop movements for border protection.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Poland not to move troops to the Belarusian border. “Belarus is part of the Union State. Unleashing aggression against Belarus would be aggression against the Russian Federation. We will respond to this with all means at our disposal,” Putin said at a meeting of the National Security Council, which was broadcast on Russian television.
The Polish government had previously announced that it was moving an unknown number of its own soldiers to the east of the country in response to the presence of Russian Wagner troops in Belarus. After their failed mutiny, the mercenaries retreated to Belarus and are supposed to train Belarusian troops there, among other things. According to the Belarusian Defense Ministry, the first “tactical exercise” lasting several days has already begun near Brest. The city is located just a few kilometers from the Polish border. The government in Warsaw fears that the exercise with the Russian Wagner mercenaries could lead to military provocations on its eastern border.
The Russian head of state continued to accuse the German neighbor and NATO partner of occupying western Ukraine without any evidence. There are reports of an allegedly planned creation of a Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian military unit, Putin said at the National Security Council session. The unit is said to be used in Ukraine “supposedly to ensure the security of what is now western Ukraine. But basically, if you call it a spade, it is about the subsequent occupation of these areas.” Putin failed to provide evidence.
Russia has been openly at war with Ukraine since February 24, 2022 and, including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, has annexed five Ukrainian territories in violation of international law. At the same time, Russian propaganda keeps claiming, without any basis, that Poland actually harbors occupation intentions. Poland is one of Ukraine’s closest allies in repelling the Russian invasion.