Polish PM warns of threat Wagner poses as troops move to the border

A small group of Wagner mercenaries exiled to Belarus after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed rebellion have moved closer to the country’s border with Poland and could pose a series to Europe according to the Polish Prime Minister. 

The ongoing saga of the Wagner Group and its mercenary soldiers took another turn on July 29th when Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki warned during a press conference that a group of 100 Wagner troops moved near the city of Grodno according to BBC News. 

This development is important because the Belarusian city of Grodno lies just under the Suwalki Gap, an important piece of territory where Poland and Lithuania’s borders meet and separate Belarus from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons

"The situation is getting increasingly dangerous,” Morawiecki explained according to a report from Reuters. “Most likely they will be disguised as the Belarusian border guard and help illegal migrants get to the Polish territory [in order to] destabilize Poland.”

Morawiecki also warned that these Wagner troops could be looking to find their way into Europe via the border and said they may attempt to disguise themselves as migrants so that they infiltrate Poland causing more issues. 

"They will most likely try to enter Poland pretending to be illegal migrants and this poses additional threats," the Polish Prime Minister explained.

Unfortunately, Morawiecki didn’t provide the source of his information on the movement of the 100 Wagner Group soldiers according to Reuters, which spoke to one expert who tracks military activity inside Belarus and said he saw no evidence to support the claim. 

In 2021, Poland and the European Union accused Belarus and its government helmed by Alexander Lukashenko of trying to foster instability in the trading bloc by transporting migrants across the Polish border according to Politico. 

Morawiecki made reference to this situation in his latest remarks when he said the move was “almost certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory” based on reporting from Politico.

It is not known how many Wagner soldiers followed Yevgeny Prigozhin to Belarus in the wake of his failed rebellion but it is clear from statements made by Belarusian President  Alexander Lukashenko that those who were in the country were itching to fight Poland. 

During a recent meeting in St. Petersburg with Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko explained that he was asked by Wagner commanders if they could “go on a tour to Warsaw and Rzeszow” according to a translation of the public comments from Newsweek. 

"We began to be bothered by the PMC Wagner, asking to go to the West,” Lukashenko told Putin, later explaining he had the situation under control and that he was keeping the mercenary group in the center of Belarus as had been agreed upon. 

Polish authorities responded to the statement from Lukashenko in force and moved at least 1000 soldiers as well as 200 pieces of military equipment to its border with Belarus as a precautionary means. 

"This is a demonstration of our readiness to respond to attempts at destabilization near the border of our country,” Polish Minister of Defense Mariusz Blaszczak explained in a tweet about the move according to a Reuters report from the time. 

How this new situation with Wagner will play out has yet to be seen but the Polish Prime Minister noted in his remarks that there had been 16,000 attempts to cross the border between Belarus and Poland this year alone according to BBC News. 

BBC News also noted both Poland and Lithuania have erected fences at their borders with Belarus but that hasn’t stopped Belarusian border guards from helping migrants find their way through the obstacles based on comments from The Polish Border Guard.