POLAND TO SEND ADDITIONAL TROOPS TO BORDER AS BELARUS BEGINS MILITARY DRILLS

Tue 08 August 2023:

Poland’s defence ministry has agreed to send additional troops to the Belarus border following a request from the border guard service, state-run news agency PAP reported.

Warsaw has been on high alert recently as Russian Wagner mercenary troops arrived in Belarus for training.

On Monday, the border guard service asked the defence ministry to send an additional 1,000 troops to the border amid increased attempts to cross the frontier illegally.

“Due to the dynamic situation on the Polish-Belarusian border … the minister of national defence ordered that the request be implemented and that additional soldiers be assigned to patrol the Polish-Belarusian border,” the defence ministry was quoted as saying by PAP.

Belarus begins military drills near Poland and Lithuania

Belarus has begun military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, as tensions heighten with the two Nato members over Russia-linked Wagner mercenaries who moved to Belarus after their short-lived mutiny in Russia.

Both Poland and Lithuania have increased border security since thousands of Wagner fighters arrived in Russia-allied Belarus under a deal that ended their armed rebellion in late June and allowed them and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to avoid criminal charges.

Leaders of the two Nato nations have said they are braced for provocations from Moscow and Minsk in a sensitive area where both countries border Belarus as well as the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The comments were made early in August after two Belarusian helicopters flew briefly at low altitude into Polish airspace. Belarusian authorities denied their helicopters entered Poland.

The Belarusian defence ministry said the drills that began on Monday are based on experiences from “the special military operation” – the term Russia uses for its war in Ukraine. It said that includes the “use of drones as well as the close interaction of tank and motorised rifle units with units of other branches of the armed forces”.

Belarus’ military has said it is actively using Russian mercenaries to train its troops, and the exercises began as more Wagner fighters reportedly arrived in the country. Mercenaries arrive in small groups daily, according to Belaruski Hajun, an activist group that tracks troop movements in Belarus.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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