The Polish government announced this Sunday that due to the “tense situation” on the border with Belarus it will reinforce the troops deployed there with half a thousand police officers from riot control units and anti-terrorist forces.
“Due to the tense situation on the border with Belarus, I have decided to strengthen our forces with a group of 500 police officers,” Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said on his Twitter account. “They will join the 5,000 border guards and 2,000 soldiers protecting the security of the Polish border,” he added.
Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski had already advanced last Wednesday that in response to the presence of the Russian mercenary group Wagner in Belarus the border would be reinforced with both temporary and permanent measures. As Kaczynski stated then, these would include increasing the number of troops stationed and installing additional obstacles and fortifications on the border between the two countries.
The Polish government has been warning for some time that the Aleksander Lukashenko regime could orchestrate “provocations” at the border on the occasion of the NATO summit in neighboring Vilnius on July 11 and 12, using migrants who can travel to Belarus without a visa.
This Friday, Deputy Defense Minister Wojciech Skurkiewicz ventured the possibility that Wagner’s mercenaries camouflage themselves among groups of migrants trying to cross the Polish or Lithuanian borders.
The Polish Border Guard reported that this Saturday it has registered 187 irregular entry attempts by citizens of Somalia and Iran, among other countries of origin.
In response to Wagner’s presence in Belarus, which follows the frustrated mutiny of the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the three Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – have tightened security at their borders. Latvia has also taken the step of completely suspending visa applications for Russian citizens.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project