Jarosław Kaczyński made the remark in a media interview on Friday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Asked by public broadcaster Polish Radio if the Wagner troops based in Belarus could pose a threat to Poland, Kaczyński said: “They are in Belarus to create various kinds of crises, mainly targeting Poland.”
The leader of Poland’s ruling conservatives Law and Justice (PiS), who is also a deputy prime minister, added: “What these crises will look like, whether it will be a continuation of hybrid warfare… or something worse, remains to be seen. We must be prepared for this.”
Kaczyński stated: “Today we have a new situation on the border with Belarus… We are taking all measures, making preparations, expanding defences, to make sure that… these actions don’t succeed.”
On Thursday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that without the efforts of officials and soldiers protecting the Polish border, and the measures introduced by the Law and Justice government, “the Wagner Group would be in Warsaw in two hours.”
Under the agreement between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Wagner financier Yevgheny Prigozhin, ending Wagner’s armed rebellion against the Russian military command in late June, Wagner fighters were allowed to relocate to Belarus, according to news outlets.
The possible relocation of Wagner fighters to Belarus, under the Putin-Lukashenko-Prigozhin deal, was first reported by Russian independent media outlets in late June, the PAP news agency reported.
The Wagner mercenaries, numbering some 8,000 fighters, were expected to be stationed at a former military base near Osipovichi in the eastern Mogilev region.
On July 13, the US Department of Defense stated that Russia’s Wagner mercenary troops were no longer taking part in combat operations in Ukraine in “any significant capacity,” following their aborted mutiny in late June.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Friday is day 520 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, wpolityce.pl