Around 100 Wagner troops have recently arrived in Belarus near the so-called Suwałki Gap. With Warsaw claiming the troops could assault NATO member states of Poland and Lithuania, military experts say such rhetoric is harmful.
The original article is available in Polish here.
"Now the situation is becoming even more dangerous," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on July 29. "This is certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory."
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Andrzej Kruczyński, a Polish security expert and retired colonel, said the prime minister’s statements were “bizarre and absurd”.
"There will be people concerned after such statements by the prime minister. The people in power are playing strange games,” said Kruczyński. “Probably the upcoming elections also play a role and they are trying to use the situation to their advantage. This is harmful.”
"[Wagner forces] are in no way a threat to us. It is necessary to look at the situation calmly. We can continue strengthening the border, but not to [...] stir up unrest [in the society],” said the retired colonel.
“We are a big country with a good enough army. [...] We have special forces, and they are of a very high standard,” he said. “ It is no secret that there are special forces on the eastern border [with Belarus], because there may be some skilled actors among refugees who want to cross the border.”
He agrees that some threats exist and that Poland's border wall does not fully work.
"This is painful to admit. Despite the use of electronic means and cameras, migrants continue to know where to cross the border at dozens of points,” Kruczyński said. “Around 150 people cross the border every day and we are only able to stop half of them."
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According to Marek Meissner, a military analyst at Poland's ISB News, Wagner could assault Polish or Lithuanian border guards.
"It could mean patrols being fired upon, snipers could specifically injure soldiers. The Wagner troops in Syria and Ukraine have learned to operate drones. We know that Poland and Lithuania have asked NATO for intelligence assistance. There are already operations in place to monitor the situation in Belarus quite deeply,” the analyst said.
The communication approach taken by the Polish authorities has been unsuccessful, he said.
"It was supposed to be political gold, [but] the ruling party's ratings did not increase. On the contrary, the prime minister is being ridiculed. As they say in Polish political parlance: it was supposed to be a political explosion, but it turned out to be a wet spot," said Meissner.
Considering 100 Wagner troops like “100 Spartans was harmful”, he added.
“They should not be considered military elites. They are equal to average mechanised infantrymen. I stress that these are light infantry. They gave up all their heavy weapons a month ago,” Meissner said, adding that mercenaries could not storm the border.
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