Poland Prime Minister: 100 Wagner fighters moving toward Suwałki Gap gateway to E.U.

The authorities in Poland say that more than 100 Wagner Group mercenaries have advanced toward the Suwałki Gap, a sparsely populated and strategically important area on the Poland–Lithuania border that links the Baltic countries to “greater Europe.”

“The situation is becoming increasingly dangerous,” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said during a press conference.

According to the prime minister, the events are “a step toward further a hybrid attack on Polish territory.” Morawiecki added that in recent years, the number of attempts at illegal crossings from Belarus into Poland and other E.U. countries has risen sharply.

Morawiecki also suggested that the Wagner mercenaries may be planning to pose as Belarusian border guards to help illegal migrants enter Polish territory. He also said that the mercenaries themselves may cross into Polish territory illegally, which would create “additional risks.”

Belarusian publication Zerkalo notes, however, that as yet there have been no reports of significant numbers of Wagner fighters moving through the Grodno region, which borders the Suwałki Gap. The military monitoring group Belarusky Hajun writes that there is a military training camp in the region right next to Belarus’s borders with Lithuania and Poland, and that Wagner fighters may have come there to train with the Belarusian military.

After Evgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion on June 23–24, the Russian authorities said that Prigozhin would be “allowed to leave” for Belarus. Wagner Group fighters were allowed to return home, to sign contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry, or to follow Prigozhin.