Wagner soldiers 'will pose as illegal migrants' to enter EU countries

NATO strategists have identified this sparsely populated stretch of plain as a weak point on their borders with Belarus and Russia.

Mr Morawiecki said more than 16,000 immigrants, mostly from the Middle East and South Asia, have already tried to cross the border from Belarus to Poland this year.

“Now the situation is becoming even more dangerous, as we have information that more than 100 Wagner mercenaries have moved to the Suwalki Gorge near Grodno in Belarus,” he said.

Wagner group global operations

Hajun Project, a Belarusian non-governmental organization that monitors the fighting, confirmed that Wagner fighters moved to the Suwalki pass, but said that they could train Belarusian soldiers. Grodno region are located near the border with Lithuania and Poland,” the message says.

Earlier this month, Wagner fighters set up a training camp for Belarusian special forces near Brest in southern Belarus, a few miles from Poland. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said it had developed a «roadmap» for Wagner to train his soldiers.

Wagner's mercenaries redeployed from Russia to Belarus in June after an attempted mutiny.

Poland is closely monitoring the situation and has deployed an additional 1,000 soldiers to its borders.

Wagner's Telegram channels reported that up to 10,000 mercenaries could cross into Belarus and incited Poland with threats that these fighters wanted to go to Warsaw.

Both Russia and Wagner had previously armed migrants against the EU.

In 2021, Belarus delivered thousands of migrants to Minsk and then transported them to the border in Poland.

Last year, Wagner fighters in Libya helped launch boats with migrants towards Italy .

p>Prigozhin flies to Minsk

The Hajun Project also reported that Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's private jet took off from St. Petersburg for Minsk on Saturday.

This week, Prigozhin was photographed in St. Petersburg shaking hands with African leaders who had a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Wagner has several lucrative mercenary and consultant contracts in Africa.

The previously media-hungry Prigozhin kept a low profile following his failed insurrection, but Wagner-linked Telegram channels have now released a voice recording attributed to him. which praises the coup in Niger this week.

“The former colonialists are trying to keep the peoples of African countries in check,” Prigozhin allegedly said in the recording. «Today they are effectively gaining their independence.»

People in Niger celebrating the overthrow of the pro-French president were photographed waving Russian flags, but the US said it did not see any involvement of Wagner in the coup.

< p>Wagner has extensive contracts in Mali, which neighbors Niger, where the country's government is fighting an Islamic insurgency.