More than 100 mercenaries belonging to the Russian-linked Wagner group in Belarus have moved close to the border with Poland, the Polish prime minister has said.
The mercenaries have moved close to the Suwalki Gap, a strategic stretch of Polish territory situated between Belarus and Kaliningrad, a Russian territory separated from the mainland, Mateusz Morawiecki said at a press conference on Saturday.
Poland is a member of the European Union (EU) and Nato and has worried about its security with Russian ally Belarus and Ukraine on its eastern border.
Those fears have grown since Wagner group mercenaries arrived in Belarus since the group’s short-lived rebellion earlier this summer.
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The Poland-Belarus border has already been a tense place for a couple of years, ever since large numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa began arriving, seeking to enter the EU by crossing into Poland, as well as Lithuania.
Poland’s government accuses Russia and Belarus of using the migrants to destabilise Poland and other EU countries.
It calls the migration a form of hybrid warfare and has responded by building a high wall along part of its border with Belarus.
[ Wagner’s Prigozhin appears on sidelines of Russia-Africa summit in St PetersburgOpens in new window ]
“Now the situation becomes even more dangerous,” Mr Morawiecki told reporters.
He said “this is certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory”.
Mr Morawiecki spoke during a visit to an arms factory in Gliwice, in southern Poland, where Leopard tanks used by the Ukrainian army are being fixed.
