Almost two months ago, the Wagner Force marched on Moscow in a dramatic and bloody effort to oust Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Now, although the mercenary group no longer threatens the stability inside Russia, the federation has been using it to create a new flashpoint with the West: The Belarusian borders with Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
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Wagner's march on Moscow came to a halt some 130 miles from the capital, with its commander Yevgeny Prigozhin and fighters given three choices: integrating into the Russian military; going to Africa (where Wagner Force has been operating in multiple theaters); or leaving to Belarus. The Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, whose regime is dependent on Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been claiming that he was the one who invited them to his country.
According to various estimates, there are somewhere between 3,800 to 4,000 Russian mercenaries currently in Belarus, and according to Lukashenko and his state media, their goal is to "train and bolster the Belarusian military using the immense combat experience they have accumulated." But it is far from certain if this tells the whole story. Pavel Matsukevich, a senior researcher at a think tank and former Belarusian diplomat, has questions as to who is funding their activity and the training they have been providing the Belarusian armed forces. "Mercenaries don't work for free," he wrote in a review he published over the weekend. "In fact, they tend to get generous compensation for their work."
Video: Polish prime minister warns about Wagner Group's activity / Credit: Reuters
Valery Kavaleuski, the deputy head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus (which has been operating from Lithuania after Lukashenko refused to concede defeat following the 2020 election), says that the hosting of the Wagner Force has been imposed on Lukashenko. "Wagner poses a threat to Ukraine, to NATO's borders and to the Belarusian society, and even on Lukashenko himself," he told Israel Hayom. "Their loyalty has always been to Russia and to its interests. In fact, after the events of June, they could be inclined to help undo the damage they inflicted on Putin's image in their mutiny. The danger they pose is high all-around."
The danger is becoming very real. In fact, one cannot rule out the possibility that in the wake of the rebellion, a new plan has been concocted in the Moscow-Minsk axis, one that would involve creating a new theater of conflict: The Belarusian borders with Latvia, Lithuania – and especially with Poland. In fact, several days ago, the Polish Foreign Ministry claimed that the Wagnerites tried to cross into Poland. Just over a week ago, the government in Warsaw sounded the alarm, saying that some 100 of the group's fighters were sent to the Suwałki Gap – an overland corridor connecting Belarus with the Russian enclave Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea – in order to help traffic labor migrants into Poland. The corridor, which is also used as the land border between Poland and Lithuania, is NATO's Achilles heel: There was a time in the past when its seizing by Russia would have resulted in the Baltic member states being cut off from the rest of the alliance. On August 1, 2023, two Belarusian helicopters flew some 1.8 miles into Polish airspace as part of what was ostensibly a "security flight" for Lukashenko's visit to the border area. That incident came on the heels of another development: In June, Russia transferred tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus.
"The Wagner group is extremely dangerous and they are being moved to [NATO's] eastern flank to destabilize it," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a statement. "We need to be aware that the number of provocations will rise," he warned. In the wake of Wagner's arrival in Belarus, Poland has deployed another 1,000 troops on its eastern border and placed helicopters on alert nearby. Currently, there are no signs that the group is planning to invade Poland or capture the strategic corridor, as it has insufficient manpower or weaponry for such an undertaking. However, according to Kavaleuski, it wouldn't have to do that. "They can destabilize things in the EU and in NATO with small provocations on the border, thus impacting political processes," he says.
The conventional wisdom is that the immediate goal the provocations seek to achieve is bifurcated: Challenging NATO and having it divert attention to yet another theater – which could force it to scale back some of the support it has been lending Ukraine. Another simultaneous goal can be psychological: Creating "Ukraine war fatigue" in Europe and in the West in particular. Down the road, if and when Ukraine and the West hold ceasefire talks vis-a-vis Russia, the tension on the Belarus-Polish border could be used as a bargaining chip and improve Moscow's standing as the sides try to find a "comprehensive solution" to the crises that are of its own making.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian government-in-exile has been stressing at every international forum that there is an ever-increasing threat from Belarus and voicing concern over the hardships endured by their compatriots who have been taken hostage by the Kremlin's plans and the survival games of Lukashenko's dictatorial regime. "What's been unfolding in Belarus impacts everyone's security, but we have to make the voice of the citizens of Belarus heard," Kavaleuski says. "The new Iron Curtain that has been drawn must be on the eastern border of Belarus rather than cut us out from Europe, where we belong. We don't want to be – and will not be – part of the relations imposed on us by Moscow."
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