Over 100 mercenaries belonging to the Russian-linked Wagner group in Belarus have moved close to Suwalki Gap, a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, which connects Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, according to the Polish prime minister.
"Now the situation becomes even more dangerous," Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki said during a visit to an arms factory in Gliwice, in southern Poland, where Leopard tanks used by the Ukrainian army are being repaired. He added that this is certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory.
Poland, a member of both the European Union and NATO, is worried about its security with Russian ally Belarus and war-torn Ukraine on its borders. Those fears have grown since Wagner group mercenaries moved to Belarus following the group's short-lived rebellion. The rebels were asked to either join the regular Russian army or move to Belarus.
The Poland-Belarus border has been a tense place for a couple of years with immigrants from the Middle East and Africa seeking to enter the EU by crossing into Poland. Polish government calls the migration a form of hybrid warfare and has responded by building a high wall along part of its border with Belarus.
"They will probably be disguised as Belarusian border guards and will help illegal immigrants to enter Polish territory, destabilize Poland, but they will also probably try to infiltrate Poland pretending to be illegal immigrants and this creates additional risks," CNN quoted Morawiecki as saying.
He added that there have been close to 16,000 attempts by migrants to cross the border illegally, “pushed to Poland” by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
-- with PTI inputs