Poland have announced on Friday that they are moving more troops to the eastern front as the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin is now in Belarus training his mercenaries.
The head of Poland’s security committee, Zbigniew Hoffmann, warned that the training drills between Wagner and Belarusian soldiers is “undoubtedly a provocation.”
Hoffman told state run media that the defence minister has moved troops to the eastern front after they have analysed all “possible threats.”
Prigozhin said that Wagner fighters training Belarusian troops will make them the second best army in the world, and Poland are concerned Wagner mercenaries could splinter off.
Vladimir Putin has accused the West of fanning the “flames of war” in their support for Ukraine during his online meeting with his security council on Friday.
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He said that Western weapons given to Kyiv will “burn well” on the battlefield and Putin accused Poland of setting up a coalition under the umbrella of NATO to join the war against Russia in Ukraine.
Putin said that Warsaw has “forgotten” the “Western part of Poland is a gift of Stalin to the country” then accused the country they have territorial ambitions for part of the former Soviet Union.
Sending 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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