Warsaw: Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, made fun of Poland on Tuesday for having Russian Wagner mercenaries close to the NATO nation's border, saying Warsaw ought to be grateful to him for keeping them in check.
Unknown numbers of the Wagner fighters who briefly rebelled in Russia in June have since relocated to Belarus and have started educating Lukashenko's army, leading Poland to begin relocating more than 1,000 of its own troops closer to the border.
At a meeting with Putin last month, Lukashenko, a close ally of the Russian leader, joked that some of the fighters were eager to advance into Poland and "go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszow."
He stated on Tuesday that the Poles "should pray that we're holding onto (the Wagner fighters) and providing for them," according to the official news agency Belta. Otherwise, they would have gotten through without us and severely damaged Warsaw and Rzeszow. Therefore, instead of criticising me, they ought to express gratitude.
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Southeast of Poland, close to the Ukrainian border, is the city of Rzeszow. Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, declared the situation to be "increasingly dangerous" on Saturday after a group of 100 Wagner fighters moved closer to the Belarusian city of Grodno, which is located close to the Polish border.
In his most recent remarks, Lukashenko made an apparent denial of that, only to immediately retract it.
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According to recent reports, Poland went berserk when it learned that a detachment of up to 100 people was arriving, he said. There were no 100-person Wagner detachments relocated here. If they did, it would be solely to impart their military expertise to (Belarusian) brigades based in Brest and Grodno.
Putin has received assistance from Lukashenko in the Ukraine conflict by allowing him to launch it partially from Belarusian soil and by allowing Russian troops to train at his bases.
Despite not sending his own troops to fight, he has said that Wagner, who took part in some of the conflict's most intense battles, will train them. "I have to instruct my military because a fighting army is only half an army,"