16 July 2023 , 21:10
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Russia is threatening to send in its mercenary army and invade countries seen as NATO’s “weakest links”, according to a key insider.
A top pro-Putin parliamentarian and reservist general says Wagner is set to be used to take an area known as The Suwalki Corridor - a 60-mile strip of land straddling the border between Poland and Lithuania.
It has massive strategic importance for NATO and the EU - as well as Russia.
For the West, it is the only land link to the three ex-Soviet Baltic republics Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia which could be vulnerable to Putin if the current east-west tension worsens.
For Russia, control of the corridor would give a land link between the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, main base of Putin’s Baltic Fleet, and firm Kremlin ally Belarus.
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Wagner private mercenary army on its way to Belarus (Ostorozhno Novosti/e2w)
The move could increase tensions in the area (Ostorozhno Novosti/e2w)Reservist Col-Gen Andrey Kartapolov, now an MP who is the loyalist chairman of the Russian parliament’s defence committee, told state TV: “It is clear Wagner went to Belarus to train the Belarusian armed forces…[But] not only, and not so much.
“There is such a place as the Suwalki Corridor. Should anything happen, we need this Suwalki Corridor very much.
“A strike force [based in Wagner forces in Belarus] is ready to take this corridor in a matter of hours.”
His “shock fist” land grab plan would hit sparsely populated territory which has been labelled NATO’s “Achilles heel” or “soft underbelly”.
Because it could be the first point of contact in a Third World War, the corridor has been branded “the most dangerous place on earth”.
A Russian move here with state-backed Wagner would likely trigger NATO’s clause 5, setting the Alliance against Russia.
Yet Poland is rapidly rearming due to the threat from Moscow, and Germany is to deploy 4,000 troops permanently in Lithuania as NATO strengthens its presence in the Baltic states.
Thousands of Wagner troops have arrived in Belarus in recent days.
More were seen today on the road in Russia’s Lipetsk region heading for the landlocked states.
An agreement was reached to move the troops to Belarus after Wagner halted their armed mutiny on 24 June.
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Last week Joe Biden confirmed he doesn't know where Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is - and joked " if I were him, I'd be careful what I ate."
The US president was giving a press conference on Thursday after capping off a trip in Europe to show the world military alliance NATO remains "more united than ever" against Russia's invasion of when he made the chilling comments.