'Excursion' For Wagnerites: Drazdy Is Closer Than Warsaw

The West will not disregard the threat from Lukashenka.

Lukashenka caught the eye with a story about the desire of militants based in Belarus to attack Poland. But it is much more likely that Prigozhin's mercenaries will eventually become a problem for the ruler of Belarus, Salidarnasts writes.

“The Wagnerites began to stress us out. ‘We want to go to the West. Allow us.’ I say, why do you need to go to the West? ‘Well, to go on an excursion to Warsaw and Rzeszów,” Aliaksandr Lukashenka said at a meeting with Vladimir Putin. “And Rzeszów is unacceptable for them. They fought near Bakhmut and they know where the military equipment came from.”

A broad hint that the gang of Yevgeny Prigozhin might attack Poland was accompanied by a mention that the “chief peacemaker of the planet” personally restrains the mercenaries from the campaign. Thus, Lukashenka acts as the savior of the West from the hordes of the Wagner Group.

However, this “homework” for cameras is unlikely to be a success. NATO will not appreciate Lukashenka's titanic efforts to prevent an invasion of Poland, because it does not need them.

I remember that the Wagnerites went on an “excursion” in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor five years ago, where their only direct clash with the Americans took place. As a result, they are still counting the number of the corpses of mercenaries there: either dozens or hundreds.

The Wagner PMC fighters and the Russian army were besieging Bakhmut for nine months. Do they really want to scare someone with the prospect of their campaign against Warsaw? Oh well.

It is much more realistic that the Wagnerites will prefer to go on an “excursion”, for example, to the Palace of Independence in Minsk. Yes, of course, the Belarusian special services are closely monitoring Prigozhin’s people. But, as the Russian experience shows, this does little to insure against anything. The distance from Tsel to Drazdy is much less than from Rostov to the Kremlin.

The West will not also completely ignore the thinly veiled threat from Lukashenka. It is unlikely that he will frighten anyone, but they will take preventive measures in case of provocations by the Wagnerites from the territory of Belarus against Poland and Lithuania.

...In the meantime, Lukashenka in St. Petersburg announced the possibility of a "cultural outing" to Poland but Ukrainian drones have already "viewed sights" in Moscow City Center.