days after the killing Leader of the Russian military group WagnerPoland and the three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) demanded that Belarus expel the group “immediately”. The countries justified this request by security concerns in light of accusations against the group’s fighters of committing crimes in Ukraine, while Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expressed his country’s desire to increase the number of Wagner fighters in Belarus, which they arrived after the group’s failed rebellion against Russia.
“We have asked (Belarusian President Alexander) Lukashenko’s regime to immediately expel the Wagner Group from Belarus,” Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said after meeting his counterparts from the Baltic states, all of which share borders with Belarus except for Estonia.
Thousands of Wagner mercenaries are stationed in Belarus, and the country’s president recently expressed his desire to increase this number to 10,000, according to the Polish authorities.
Kaminsky emphasized that “a few thousand, including criminals, were released from Russian prisons in return for a promise to participate in the war on Ukraine. They are frustrated and accused of war crimes. It is a large group capable of doing anything.”
The Polish minister added, “They should leave our region, international security requires that. We are afraid of incidents, including armed incidents with the participation of these mercenaries.”
Kamensky warned the Belarusian authorities that “in the event of a serious incident on the border with Belarus, all border crossings that are still open” with this country will be closed.
On the other hand, the ministers asked Belarus to “immediately return all illegal immigrants from the border area to their countries of origin,” accusing the Belarusian services of gathering them there.
The countries of the region accuse Belarus and Russia of orchestrating a wave of immigration aimed, according to it, at destabilizing the region and the entire European Union, which Moscow and Minsk deny.
France 24/AFP
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2023-08-28 17:09:20
