“Handle With Great Care”
Belarus accuses Poland of violating airspace with a helicopter
09/01/2023, 10:15 p.m
Just a few weeks ago, Poland reported an airspace violation by a Belarusian helicopter. Now Belarus is also claiming that a Polish helicopter flew over the border. Poland is skeptical.
According to information from Belarus, a Polish military helicopter has entered the airspace of the neighboring country. The Mi-24 helicopter crossed the Belarusian border “at an extremely low altitude”, flew up to 1,200 meters into Belarusian territory and then vice versa, the Belarusian border guard said in the online service Telegram. A spokesman for the Polish army denied a violation of Belarusian airspace and accused Minsk of “lies and provocations”.
The government in Minsk summoned the Polish chargé d’affaires to the foreign ministry because of the airspace violation. “The Belarusian diplomats drew the Polish side’s attention to the inadmissibility of this violation and called on Warsaw to take measures to prevent such incidents in the future,” the ministry said.
Poland rejected the allegations from Belarus. The spokesman for the operational command of the Polish Armed Forces, Jacek Goryszewski, said: “These are lies and provocations from the Belarusian side.” There was “definitely no such injury,” he continued. “This is evident from the pilot’s reports and the recordings of the radar system.”
It is “possible that it is a Belarusian provocation, which would be completely natural,” said Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski. “We will investigate the situation. However, statements from the Belarusian side should be treated with extreme caution,” he told Polsat News TV channel.
Tensions in relations between Minsk and Warsaw had recently increased significantly. On Monday, Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia demanded that Belarus ban the Russian mercenary group Wagner from its territory.
Poland and Lithuania have already secured their borders with Belarus with fences. Warsaw also wants to station an additional 10,000 soldiers near the border. Lithuania had closed two of its six border crossings to Belarus in mid-August because of the presence of the Wagner mercenaries.
After a brief rebellion in June, thousands of Wagner mercenaries went to Belarus. In particular, they took part in the training of Belarusian soldiers. After the death of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash, Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko, who was closely allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, indicated that the number of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus would rise to as many as 10,000.