Poland and the Baltic countries demanded on Monday that Belarus expel the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said.
“We ask the regime of Lukashenko (Belarusian President Alexander) to immediately expel the Wagner group from Belarus,” Kaminski said after meeting with his Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian colleagues.
According to Polish authorities, thousands of mercenaries from the Wagner paramilitary group are stationed in Belarus, and President Lukashenko recently wanted to increase that number to 10,000.
“There are several thousand, some of them criminals, released from Russian prisons against a promise to participate in the war in Ukraine, deeply demoralized and accused of war crimes. This is a large group, capable of anything,” Kaminsky underlined.
The Polish minister fears that his presence in Belarus threatens international security and warned the Lukashenko regime that “in the event of a critical incident on the border with Belarus (…) all border crossings (with this country) that are still open will be closed”.
In addition, the ministers of Poland and the Baltic countries have asked Belarus to “immediately return all illegal immigrants received there by the Belarusian services from the border area to their countries of origin”.
These countries accuse Belarus and Russia of orchestrating a wave of immigration aimed at destabilizing the region and the entire European Union – an accusation rejected by the Belarusian authorities.
Source: DN
