Countries on NATO’s eastern flank warned of new dangers linked to Russia as elements of the Wagner mercenary group prepare to arrive in Belarus.
(Bloomberg) — Countries on NATO’s eastern flank warned of new dangers linked to Russia as elements of the Wagner mercenary group prepare to arrive in Belarus.
Latvia’s prime minister, Krisjanis Karins, said the presence of Wagner in neighboring Belarus posed an urgent threat of “infiltration” into the European Union and called on the bloc to intensify security measures.
His warning came a day after Poland said it would bolster security on its frontier with Belarus amid fears that the presence of the forces may intensify what it calls hybrid warfare with its eastern neighbor. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was preparing to present a Polish plan to boost security on the EU’s eastern fringe in Brussels on Thursday.
“The threat will probably not be a frontal military threat, but the threat of infiltration into Europe for unknown purposes,” Karins said in Brussels as EU leaders met. “That means we need to heighten our border awareness and make sure we can control that.”
The new risks emerged after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal Saturday between Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the revolt that came within 200 kilometers (124 miles) of Moscow.
The deal will reportedly allow Wagner troops to move to Belarus as an option. Poland estimates that about 8,000 members of the group will be shifted to Belarus, which may mean a “new phase of hybrid warfare, a phase that is much more difficult than we observe now,” Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said at a press conference in Warsaw on Wednesday.
The government in Warsaw has reported an increase in attempts by migrants from Africa and the Middle East to cross into the country from Belarus. It has accused Lukashenko’s government of ferrying migrants to the border to increase pressure on eastern EU governments and fuel anti-immigrant sentiment among voters.
The Belarusian monitoring group Hajun, which uses open-source data and information from local informants, hasn’t yet reported any preparations for hosting Wagner along the border with Poland or other NATO neighbors of Belarus.
The only place where a camp appears to be set up is an abandoned military base in the country’s center, some 75 kilometers south-east of Minsk, Hajun said on Telegram.
Even as the Wagner leader’s jet was detected landing in Belarus, his mercenary troops haven’t been arriving in the country as of evening of June 28, the group said.
Belarus’s assistance for migrants crossing the border is part of the Russian plan to attack Europe, Morawiecki said on Thursday before leaving for the European Union summit in the Belgian capital.
The Polish ruling Law & Justice party has recently raised the subject of migration in its campaign before the parliamentary election in the fall as it criticizes the EU’s plan to spread the burden of hosting immigrants among the member countries. The party plans to hold a referendum around the time of the general vote to ask Poles about the issue.
–With assistance from Piotr Bujnicki.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.