Political Scientist About Lukashenka’s Threats: NATO Will Respond

The Alliance does not leave its members in trouble.

Putin and Lukashenka have increased their anti-Polish rhetoric. The Belarusian dictator even spoke about the campaign of the Wagnerites against Warsaw and Rzeszów. Prior to this, Russian propagandists were spreading the topic of an attack on the Suwalki corridor from the territory of Belarus.

Is there any cause for concern for Poland and Lithuania? Charter97.org asked Grigorij Mesežnikov, Slovak political analyst and president of IVO (Bratislava).

– Poland and Lithuania have long had to worry about Russia’s aggressive policy towards Ukraine, as well as attempts to keep Belarus in its orbit. As far as I know, nuclear weapons have already been deployed there. An increase in such rhetoric was to be expected.

Here we can add Putin's speech: he talked about the post-war structure of Poland, that Stalin allegedly donated some kind of Western territory and so on. Fears that the Lukashenka regime, in coordination with Russia, will try to organize some kind of provocation, I think, are justified.

But I see that both Poland and Lithuania understand the situation. Poland is conducting certain defensive actions and Polish troops were deployed. So, this is another attempt on the part of Putin to escalate the situation, and the Belarusian dictator Lukashenka is assisting him.

– At the NATO summit in Vilnius, the topic of the Eastern flank of the Alliance was raised. Are the US and other countries ready to defend NATO's Eastern borders?

– There are many different arguments and dubious statements on this subject that in the end NATO allegedly will not come to the rescue, it will take a long time to deal with this. But I believe that these arguments are not true.

Yes, up to now there has not been a situation that would indicate a Russian attack on a NATO member, however, in vain someone hopes that the Alliance will not respond. Maybe I'm ahead of my time, but literally in the last couple of hours, there was information that the United States would come to the aid of Poland, if something like that, which could mean an attack from Russia.

I think that this will be such a test for NATO when the Alliance fully confirms that this is indeed a collective defence system and that NATO does not leave its members in trouble.