USA: In response to rumours that soldiers from the private military firm Wagner, currently stationed in Belarus, wanted to "go on tour" in the neighbouring state, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said to reporters on Monday that Washington would defend Poland in the event of an attack from abroad.
Miller was questioned about remarks made by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who claimed that Wagner members were eager to settle scores with those who supplied Ukraine with weapons and suggested that they could "go on a tour to Warsaw." Miller was then asked about these remarks.
"I don't know how much you should read into [that]," Miller remarked. "Let me just say again how strong our alliance is with Poland. Poland is a member of NATO, so of course we will defend the entire alliance's territory if necessary.
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Over the past month, thousands of Wagner fighters have moved to Belarus following their failed mutiny in Russia, which was put down thanks to Lukashenko's intervention. The Belarusian president expressed his concern to President Vladimir Putin about their ostensible desire to enter Poland during his weekend visit to Moscow. Rzeszow, a centre for NATO efforts to provide Ukraine with weapons, ammunition, equipment, and repairs, was specifically mentioned by Lukashenko.
Putin insisted last week that any attack from Poland against Belarus would be treated as an attack against Russia. Russian troops are stationed in Belarus, and Moscow and Minsk have a defence agreement. Last month, Russia also sent nuclear weapons to Belarus, citing ongoing disputes with NATO over Ukraine.
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The Russian president claimed that Warsaw and Lithuania are forming a "coalition" to annex parts of western Ukraine while pretending to be conducting a peacekeeping mission, and that some Kiev officials may be working on this initiative. Officials from Poland have vehemently denied having any intentions to occupy Ukrainian territory.
Poland held a large portion of the present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania between 1919 and 1939. At the end of World War II, the USSR received these "eastern borderlands" in exchange for Eastern Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia, from which the local German population was expelled.
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Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, took offence to Putin's recent reference to Poland's western borderlands as a "gift from Stalin." He called the late Soviet leader "a war criminal" and threatened to summon Russia's ambassador as retaliation.
Early in July, Warsaw increased its military presence close to Belarus's border, citing Wagner's threat. The formation of a new unit will be positioned close to the Lithuanian border in the Suwalki Gap, which separates Belarus from the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, according to Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak's announcement on Monday