Poland sends 500 anti-terror police to Belarus border due to 'tense situation'
Poland will send 500 police officers to the border with Belarus, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said on Sunday, reports Reuters.
Polish border police said on Sunday that 187 people tried to cross illegally into Poland from Belarus on Saturday.
"Due to the tense situation on the border with Belarus, we have decided to reinforce our forces with 500 Polish police officers from the prevention and counter-terrorism units," Kaminski wrote on Twitter.
"They will join the 5,000 border guards and 2,000 soldiers who are guarding the security of this border."
The announcement comes after a top Polish security official warned yesterday that Wagner fighters moving into Belarus after their failed revolt in Russia could use migrants from Africa and other places where the paramilitary group operates to destabilize Central and Eastern Europe.
Jacek Siewiera, the head of Poland's national security office, told the Financial Times that "the risk to Poland is correlated with the number of Wagner mercenaries remaining in Minsk."
The threat, he added, should be assessed "in combination with all the means that Wagner has in Africa, the Maghreb, the Sahel and the Middle East and the risk of escalation of forced immigration and asymmetric attack on the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia".
