Saturday 29 July 2023

CNN (7/29/23)

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/29/europe/wagner-poland-suwalki-intl/index.html#:~:text=More%20than%20100%20troops%20from%20the%20Russian%20mercenary,could%20pose%20as%20migrants%20to%20cross%20the%20border.

More than 100 troops from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are reported to be moving towards a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania called the Suwalki gap or corridor.  They are reported to be near Grodno, a city in western Belarus.

There are thousands of Wagner troops in Belarus, moved there after their leader, Prigozhin, conducted an uprising in Russia.

Polish authorities warn that the Wagner troops are trying to destabilize the borer and may pose as illegal immigrants.  Pushing migrants into Poland by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is a tactic used in the past. 

“Though just 60 miles long, the corridor is strategically important to NATO, the EU, Russia and Belarus. The border region connects the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to Belarus and it is the only overland link between the Baltic states and the rest of the EU.”

As part of a deal with Prigozhin, Lukashenko asked Wagner to help train military in Belarus.  There are plans to hold joint military exercises near the border with Poland even more likely to raise tensions.

Lukashenko joked with Putin at the recent African summit that Wagner troops were restless and wanted to go west on “an excursion.”

This is not the first time Lukashenko has made similar comments about Wagner troops. 

Defense Express: Wagner’s Belarus dynamics suggest it plans trouble in neighboring countries

In July, at least 3,500 Wagner troops were reported in Belarus, but the number is higher now.  At the end of July, Ukraine’s border guard service stated that there are now at least 5,000 mercenaries in Belarus.

Recent satellite images also show 754 pieces of equipment at the Wagner camp near the village of Tsel.

Additional Sources:

How the War against Ukraine has changed lives in Poland

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099411575/poles-polish-youth-war-ukraine-russia-refugees

Wikipedia: Suwalki Gap

The Suwałki Gap, also known as the Suwałki corridor[a][b] ([suˈvawkʲi] (listen)), is a sparsely populated area immediately southwest of the border between Lithuania and Poland, between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast. Named after the Polish town of Suwałki, this choke point has become of great strategic and military importance since Poland and the Baltic states joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The border between Poland and Lithuania was formed after the Suwałki Agreement of 1920; but it carried little importance in the interwar period as at the time, the Polish lands stretched farther northeast, while during the Cold War, Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union and communist Poland belonged to the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact created borders that cut through the shortest land route between Kaliningrad (Russian territory isolated from the mainland) and Belarus (Russia’s ally). As the Baltic states and Poland eventually joined NATO, this narrow border stretch between Poland and Lithuania became a vulnerability for the military bloc because, if a hypothetical military conflict were to erupt between Russia and Belarus on one side and NATO on the other, the capture of the 65 km (40 mi)-long strip of land between Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus would likely jeopardise NATO’s attempts to defend the Baltic states. NATO’s fears about the Suwałki Gap intensified after 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and launched the war in Donbas, and further increased after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. These worries prompted the alliance to increase its military presence in the area, and an arms race was triggered by these events.

Art Supplement

Dangerous Moonlight (1941) Polish flyer, Stefan Radecki (Anton Walbrook) meets an American war correspondent in Warsaw.  After his men make sacrifices so he can be transferred out of the fighting, he does a concert tour for Poland.  Even after developing a successful concert career and getting married to the reporter, he cannot keep himself from returning to Poland where is he killed in the war.

When he leaves Warsaw, he looks down on a city devastated by the Germans.  He promises to return.

If you want to understand just why Wagner group members moving toward Poland is so terrifying, all you have to do is remember that these wartime scenes from WWII live in the minds of people who experienced them and their children and grandchildren.

Notes: TCM recently showed this movie.  Some of the costumes were designed by Cecil Beaton.  The film is best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell and orchestrated by Roy Douglas, which includes the Warsaw Concerto.