Thousands of troops and tanks patrol Warsaw streets in show of military strength
Thousands of soldiers and tanks have been filmed on the streets of Warsaw as Poland defends itself against the threat of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus.
Footage on social media showed long lines of military vehicles moving slowly through the Polish capital in preparation for a military parade. It comes as Poland is putting 10,000 troops on its border with Belarus due to tensions with the Russian ally.
Poland is holding its Army Day to celebrate the 103rd anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw and the display has extra significance this year as it will be giving a message to Vladimir Putin of its military strength. The country's defence ministry tweeted: "The service of soldiers #PolishArmy makes our border safe."
A convoy of Polish soldiers in military vehicles passing through Warsaw (Pawel Supernak/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)It also stated: "After three years, the largest parade of the Polish Army returns on August 15 at at 14:00 on Warsaw's Wisłostrada. We will present 200 military units and 92 aircraft accompanied by 2000 soldiers! Soldiers of all types of the Polish Armed Forces will present the most modern equipment of Polish, Korean and American production, which has been purchased in recent years."
Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak also announced that 10,000 soldiers would be deployed to the border area to reinforce the work of police and border guard officers. For two years, Poland has contended with migrants arriving at the border from Belarus trying to enter the country illegally.
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It is a show of military strength by the Polish government (Pawel Supernak/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)The government in Poland and other countries along NATO’s eastern flank have accused President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, of opening the migration route in an act of “hybrid warfare” aimed at creating instability in the West. Poland is also worried about the presence of Wagner fighters who deployed to Belarus after a short-lived mutiny in Russia in June.
Anxieties have been further heightened with two Belarusian military helicopters briefly entered Polish air space, something Warsaw viewed as a deliberate provocation, and Belarus has also been carrying out military exercises on the border.
The Polish government has responded to military exercises by Belarus (Pawel Supernak/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)The Belarusian Defence Ministry said the drills that began last Monday are based on experiences from “the special military operation” — the term Russia uses for its war in Ukraine. It said that includes the “use of drones as well as the close interaction of tank and motorized rifle units with units of other branches of the armed forces.”
The war games were taking place in the Grodno region of Belarus, near the so-called Suwalki Gap — a sparsely populated stretch of land running 60 miles along the Polish-Lithuanian border. It links the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with the rest of the NATO alliance and separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea that has no land connection to Russia.
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