Wild Cards: Poland and Prigozhin
Poland aims troops at Belarus, Wagner responds, “Let’s go sightseeing in Warsaw and Rzeszow”
Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko warmly shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin before they take their seats in gilded chairs at the Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg. In the large audience room, the whirr and click of reporters’ cameras echoes from offscreen.
They had planned this meeting half a year before but, with the war and other critical events going on, they were unable to get together in person until this past Sunday, July 23.
After briefly discussing the economy, Lukashenko brings up security concerns.
What is Poland up to?
And what is Prigozhin up to…?
It’s no secret that those PMC Wagner troops, their numbers estimated at anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000, 10,000 or more, who have joined Yevgeny Prigozhin on his “exile” to Belarus (if indeed that’s what it is) have been training at the camp near Osipovichi, a town of about 30,000 located just 230 kilometres (142 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
Speculation about the training has run rampant in the Western press. Are they planning an assault on Kiev, which is only a six-hour drive away? Or do they have something else in mind…?
Lukashenko worries that the “something else” might be Poland. Especially since Polish troops have redeployed to within striking distance of Brest, a Belarusian city of nearly 350,000 people, which is right next to the Polish border.
“We see that they are setting the stage,” Lukashenko says five minutes into the meeting, as he hands a map to Russia’s president, “One of the brigades has been redeployed to 40 kilometers away from Brest. It was stationed 500 kilometers away, now the distance is 40 kilometers.”
Another Polish brigade, Lukashenko observes, was redeployed within 100 kilometers of Grodno, an ancient twelfth-century city where Nazis established a Jewish Ghetto in 1941.
The Belarusian President also notes with concern that Poland has been repairing damaged Leopard tanks, and that an airfield in Rzeszow has been reactivated. Americans and other foreigners have been observed redeploying hardware to the airfield, he tells his Russian counterpart as the chorus of cameras chirp like an army of insane crickets.
Why would Poland threaten Belarus right now? Why would they want to risk their young men and women to help Ukraine, a country which has made Stepan Bandera a state hero — the very same Nazi collaborator responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 in then-Polish Lvov?
Surely they wouldn’t just do this for the customary Western gifts of weapons and money. There must be something more in it for them, Lukashenko reasons. Perhaps it has something to do with all the talk he has suddenly been hearing about admitting Ukraine into NATO one piece at a time, rather than all at once.
“They want a piece of western Ukraine,” he concludes, “Under the guise of admission to NATO, so that the population would be OK with that. They want to chop off western Ukraine and merge it with Poland.”
Perhaps such a prize as those much-coveted, fertile lands, which Poland lost to Ukraine during World War II, would be reward enough for active participation against the Russian Federation, Lukashenko reasons. And he is not at all pleased with the idea of having NATO countries not just to the north of Belarus, where the Baltic states lie, and to the west, where Poland sits, but now also in the south, in war-torn Ukraine.
But that’s just the beginning of the Belarusian leader’s troubles. In addition to having NATO troops poised near his borders, there is also a threat from within the borders of Belarus — namely, Prigozhin and his “orchestra” — the thousands of PMC Wagner troops camped at Osipovichi, which is located just an eight-hour drive away from the Polish capital of Warsaw.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I still will,” Lukashenko says, promptly dropping a bombshell onto the Russian leader’s lap: “PMC Wagner personnel are making us worried. They insist on going westward. They ask for permission.”
Putin fidgets a bit in his chair and his brows furrow fractionally, but otherwise his face remains impassive.
“I say: ‘Why do you want to go westward?’” Lukashenko continues, “‘Well, to see the sights in Warsaw and Rzeszow.’”
Here Putin blinks slowly, then gives a slight nod of acknowledgement, a smile playing at his lips.
Lukashenko goes on, “But they hold a grudge against Rzeszow. When they were fighting near Artyomovsk [Ukrainian: Bakhmut], they knew where the military hardware came from. They have this grudge inside them against Rzeszow.” He gestures toward his chest with his right fist. “Of course,” he continues, “I keep them in the center of Belarus, as we agreed. I would not like to redeploy them there” — he gives a nervous laugh — “Because they are in a bad mood.”
Putin, looking nonplussed, says that he and Lukashenko will have two days to discuss these concerns quietly, and then the Russian leader will deliver his response at the weekly Security Council meeting.
The last Security Council meeting on July 21st, which Putin attended via videoconference, was attended by high-ranking Kremlin officials such as
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
At that meeting, Sergey Naryshkin, the Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Services, brought up concerns about the possibility of a Polish land-grab in Ukraine.
“Polish leadership is increasing its intention to control the western territories of Ukraine,” Naryshkin said, “by deploying its troops there. Such a step as one of the options is planned to be formalized as a fulfillment of allied obligations within the framework of the Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian security initiative — the so-called Lublin Triangle.”
Wikipedia defines the Lublin Triangle as “a regional alliance of three European countries — Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine— for the purposes of strengthening mutual military, cultural, economic and political cooperation and supporting Ukraine’s integration into the European Union and NATO.”
Naryshkin continues: “We see that there are plans in this connection to significantly increase the size of the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian all-armed brigade, which operates under the auspices of this so-called Lublin Triangle. We believe that these rather dangerous plans of the Polish leadership should be closely monitored.”
Putin’s response is in the following video, but unfortunately there are no English subtitles.
However, a transcript of his address was posted at the Kremlin’s website, which you might need a VPN to access. I have translated a few excerpts here. The Security Council meetings appear to convene every week, usually on Fridays. So Putin’s answer to Lukashenko, concerning Wagner, could be presented tomorrow, July 28th.
Meanwhile, here is what the Russian leader had to say regarding Poland’s interest in Ukrainian lands.
“…the prospect is obvious,” he declared, “if Polish units enter, for example, Lviv or other territories of Ukraine, they will remain there. And they will stay there forever. And this, by the way, will be nothing new. Let me remind you that after the defeat of Germany and its allies at the end of World War I, Polish units occupied Lviv and the adjacent lands that belonged to Austria-Hungary at that time.”
He talked at length about the history of the region, how Poland annexed Russian provinces during the chaos of the Russian Civil War, and how, in 1920, Poland seized part of Lithuania, and took a portion of Czechoslovakia as a result of the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938.
“I would also like to remind you of how such an aggressive policy ended for Poland,” Putin continued. “It ended with the national tragedy of 1939, when Poland was thrown by the Western allies to the German war machine and actually lost its independence and statehood, which was restored to a great extent thanks to the Soviet Union. And it was thanks to the Soviet Union, thanks to Stalin’s position, that Poland gained significant lands in the West, lands of Germany. That’s exactly right: the western territories of present-day Poland are Stalin’s gift to the Poles. Have our friends in Warsaw forgotten this? We will remind them.”
“As for the Polish leaders,” he went on, “they probably expect to form a coalition under the NATO umbrella and intervene directly in the conflict in Ukraine in order to get a fatter piece of land, to regain, as they believe, their historical territories — today’s Western Ukraine. It is well known that they also dream about Belarusian lands.”
Putin said that if the Ukrainian regime chose to sell land to Poland, Russia would not interfere, because it’s “their business.” But if Poland unleashes its aggression against Belarus, it would be an attack on a Russian ally, and as such, it would be seen as an attack against the Russian Federation itself. “We will respond to this with all means at our disposal,” he said. Emphasis is mine.
But what about Prigozhin? The enigmatic former chef who staged an armed rebellion in Russia just over a month ago, has made trips back to the Federation and even met with President Putin in the Kremlin, though he reportedly rejected an offer from the Russian leader to let Wagner’s troops merge with the regular rank and file of Russian armed forces. And, according to Russian journalists who spoke with the President, there was not an “air of forgiveness” at the Kremlin that day. In fact, shortly after the meeting, Russian media ran sensational stories about all the loot authorities had found at Prigozhin’s mansion.
Polish military forces greatly outnumber Wagner, however, the Russian publication “Dzen” theorizes that Wagner fighters could attack a narrow strip of land known as the Suwalki Passage. “Even a small attack on this area,” the article reads, “sandwiched between Poland, Lithuania and Kaliningrad, could cause huge problems for NATO and potentially lead to World War III.”
The article continues: “Crossing the Suwałki corridor makes it much more difficult to get reinforcements from Poland and Germany, where NATO’s largest bases are located, to the Baltic states. Conversely, Russian reinforcements would be much easier to move by creating a land bridge between Belarus and Kaliningrad, Putin’s heavily militarized slash of land on the Baltic Sea. Moscow knows this and is believed to have rehearsed the closure of the Suwalki corridor with Belarusian troops during the Zapad military exercises in 2021.”
The article adds that British military have now joined Polish forces waiting near the borders of Belarus.
Waiting for what? For an attack from PMC Wagner? Or Waiting to attack Belarus? We can only speculate. But the Dzen article warns that if Wagner started skirmishes in that area, it would make matters more difficult for NATO troops. One, they could shut down the border completely, making it impossible to transport provisions by rail or road. Two, such guerilla attacks would likely force Poland to invoke Article 5 and demand a response from NATO, which would likely be supported by Eastern European states. Lastly, an attack by Wagner, which is no longer funded by the Russian state, according to Putin, would essentially be an attack from a rogue army, which the Kremlin could deny responsibility for. The question of how to respond to such an attack thus becomes even stickier for NATO.
Poland is well aware of its vulnerability in the Suwalki Passage, and according to Polish media, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak has ordered a new battalion of sappers to join with Polish forces responsible for defending the area. They will also be equipped with a Polish-made scatter minelaying vehicle.
It is all unsettling news, to say the least.
At a briefing by the US State Department on July 24, Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked by a reporter to comment on the developing situation. The following is copied directly from the State Department’s transcript of the briefing:
QUESTION: Thank you. How concerned is the U.S. with Lukashenka’s [sic] comments about Wagner forces wanting to invade Poland?
MR MILLER: I will say it is another in a series of irresponsible comments by Lukashenka [sic]. And the only thing I will reiterate, as I said about another matter earlier in this briefing, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory.
QUESTION: Can I follow on that?
MR MILLER: Yeah, yeah.
QUESTION: Because not just Lukashenka [sic] made comments about Poland, but also Putin, who warned that an attack on Belarus from Poland somehow would be an attack on Russia. And, also, he made some comments about how Poland’s western lands are a gift from Stalin. So, do you see this as some kind of orchestrated thing, the — how do you see those comments? Should we be worried?
MR MILLER: I don’t know how much you should read into them. I would say that there is only one country in the region that has demonstrated the — not only the intent but the willingness to invade its neighbors, and that’s Russia, not Poland, not any other country in the region. And so, I would just reiterate that our alliance with Poland is strong. Poland is a NATO member, of course, and we will defend, if necessary, every inch of NATO territory.
The emphasis on the last sentence is mine.
Once again, we are left with more questions than answers. But we should not forget Prigozhin’s warning: “Beginning August 5, PMC Wagner will continue to carry out its combat missions.”
While we wait, perhaps we should turn to the Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov, who wrote, “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”
Wagner is the pistol.
Is August 5th the next “act” in the “play”…?
We can only wait and see.
With special thanks to Lilya Takumbetova for her help with research.
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television. You can support Deborah’s writing at Paypal or Patreon, or donate via Substack.
