A Polish deputy minister has warned that the Russian mercenary Wagner Group may attempt to push migrants towards the Polish border.

The Wagner Group has been building up its presence in Belarus after a failed mutiny against the Russian authorities as Belarusian strongman, Alexander Lukashenko, took it upon himself to mediate between the Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Following the negotiations he decided to offer a safe haven in Belarus to Prigozhin and his mercenaries.

„These bloody mercenaries, often criminals, can carry out all types of missions,” Maciej Wasik, a Polish deputy interior minister, told the broadcaster TV Republika on Tuesday.

„As they are in Belarus, they can push people to the Polish border,” he added.

The group can also perform offensive tasks in the direction of the Ukrainian border and also pose a potential threat in the context of the Nato summit in Vilnius as Minsk is relatively close to the capital of Lithuania, Wasik also said.

The Nato summit is scheduled for July 11-12.

„They will carry out the duties that they are paid to perform…” said Wasik. „We do not know who is paying them nor what will happen when ‘this someone’ stops paying them.”

He said that although migration pressure on the Poland-Belarus Border was growing, the situation there was much better than it was two years ago.

In 2021, Poland struggled with waves of migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, who tried to cross into Poland from Belarus after Lukashenko invited them to his country under a false promise of easy access to the EU through Poland. The number of illegal crossings fell rapidly after Poland installed a new border fence equipped with electronic surveillance.

Recently, the government decided to send police and army reinforcements to the border with Belarus to bolster its protection. (PAP)

mk