The Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in St Petersburg on Saturday evening to hold talks with Vladimir Putin on “security issues.”
Lukashenko’s press service reported that they will be discussion “security issues, the international agenda, economic interaction, the implementation of allied programs, joint opposition to sanctions pressure, and more.”
During the meeting Lukashenko told Putin that the battle-hardened Wagner mercenaries “want to go West.”
Lukashenko said that the Wagnerites are “stressing him out” because they are insisting that they want to “attack” Poland which is a member of NATO.
Lukashenko told Putin, “The Wagner mercenaries have started to stress us out – they want to go to the West, saying: ‘Let’s go on an excursion to Warsaw and Rzeszów!’”
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The meeting is expected to last until at least Monday and the Russian leader told the Belarusian President that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “has failed,” to which Lukashenko said, “there is no counteroffensive.”
Lukashenko showed Putin a map of where Polish troops are based on the borders and warned that one of Poland’s brigade’s is not far from Brest and Grodno, which are regions inside Belarus.
Lukashenko told Putin, “Polish troops have transferred their brigades to the borders of the Union State – now one of them is located 40 kilometers from Brest, and the other is about 100 kilometers from Grodno.”
Over the past week Poland has been redirecting their troops and on Friday soldiers were sent to the eastern front as Wagner fighters are training Belarusian forces which is “undoubtedly a provocation.”
"There is a Ukrainian offensive, but it failed" – Vladimir Putin at an informal meeting with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko
During negotiations with the head of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko in Strelna, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a record number of… pic.twitter.com/dWDVvY7erd
— Zlatti71 (@djuric_zlatko) July 23, 2023
The head of Poland’s security committee, Zbigniew Hoffmann, told state run media that the defence minister has moved troops to the eastern front after they have analysed all “possible threats.”
Putin sent a warning shot to Warsaw regarding their actions of building up troops on the Polish Belarus border, the Kremlin warned that any aggression the is perceived against Minsk will be met “with all means at our disposal.”
The Kremlin has said that Poland’s move to bolster their defences on the border as “aggressive” and the spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the move is a “cause for concern.”
Peskov told reporters, “Of course it is a cause for concern. The aggressiveness of Poland is a reality.
“Such a hostile attitude towards Belarus and the Russian Federation requires heightened attention [from our side].”
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Thursday he has ordered troops from the country’s west to Biala Podlaska, to move around 45 kilometres west from Brest, and in Kolno, further north.
Blaszczak said on state Radio 1, “We must bear in mind that bringing a few thousand of Wagner’s forces into Belarus poses a threat to our country, hence my decision to move some military units from Poland’s west to Poland’s east.
“Their task it is to train and to deter an aggressor, it is to show Russia that Poland’s border should not be crossed, that it would not pay off to attack Poland.”
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