Could Wagner Occupy the Suwalki Gap?

this video was brought to you by brilliant in mid-july Wagner troops finally relocated to Belarus as had been agreed with the Kremlin in the aftermath of their attempt to coup now perhaps unsurprisingly this sparked some anxiety on NATO's Eastern flank especially in Poland which has been steadily increasing its troop presence on the Belarusian Border in reaction to What some see as the growing threat of wagner-led hybrid Warfare on NATO territory so in this video we're going to take a look at why tensions between Poland and Belarus are at an all-time high and whether Wagner might actually attack NATO [Music] so this story really starts with Wagner's attempted coup in late June as you might remember the coup attempt ended abruptly after Belarusian President Alexander lukashenko apparently negotiated a last-minute deal between Putin and pregosian under the terms of the deal as described by the Kremlin Wagner would give up its heavy weaponry and redeploy its remaining faces in Russia to Belarus this immediately Sparks some anxiety in Poland and the baltics especially Lithuania and Latvia which both share a border with Belarus and who all stepped up their troop deployments along the border as a result of these concerns now originally Poland's main anxiety seemed to be the fact that Wagner would help traffic migrants into Poland for context in late 2021 Belarus and Russia started flying over hundreds of migrants from the Middle East and then pushing them into Poland as an apparent attempt to manufacture a migrant crisis in the EU now Poland responded to this by literally building a wall all on their border with Belarus and they're still worried that Wagner perhaps disguised as Belarusian border guards would be used to restart migrant flows into Poland by finding a way around the wall now for a while after the coup it seemed that Wagner were actually just gonna stick it out in Russia and that Poland and the baltics had nothing to worry about flight data suggested that even pragosian was still in Russia and when a Russian journalist called Wagner pretending that he wanted to sign up the Wagner recruiter still said that they were operating out of Russia however on July 14th the Belarusian defense Ministry announced that Wagner troops had started training in Belarus and that they were training Belarusian conscripts in its territorial Defense Force in a town some 65 kilometers southeast of Minsk where a large military base capable of housing an estimated 5 000 troops has been created by Wagner now this is interesting because it used to be the responsibility of the Russian army to train Belarusian conscripts which suggests that Wagner has to some extent ousted the Russian army in Belarus a few days later pregosian released his first video in a while where he said that Wagner would make the Belarusian Army the second best in the world before Gathering our strength and heading off for Africa in response Poland again increased their troop presence on the Belarusian border this didn't go down too well with Putin though who claimed in a televised security council meeting on July 21 that Poland's new development was a provocation and warned that aggression from Belarus will mean aggression against the Russian Federation in the same address Putin claimed that Poland was a gift from Stalin and accused Poland of harboring aspirations to Annex Ukraine this might sound absurd given the strength of Polish support for Ukraine but it's actually a common talking point in the Kremlin and Putin himself has claimed multiple times that Poland is trying to Annex part of western Ukraine that Poland ceded the Soviet Union during and after World War II now two days later in a slightly extraordinary meeting with Putin on July 23rd lukashenko joked that some Wagner Fighters apparently wanted to invade Poland foreign seem to show that Poland had deployed armored vehicles to the Belarusian Border in response and a few days later Poland's prime minister said that he had received intelligence that a hundred Wagner troops were advancing towards the suvalki gap for context the souvalki Gap is at 104 kilometer strip of land that connects Russia's cliningrad oblast with Belarus and runs along the Lithuania Poland border it's named after the Polish town of suvalki which sits just South of the Border and as all land connections between Russia and Leningrad run through it Russian citizens have a Visa waiver agreement for passing through the area as such this is considered to be one of the most geopolitically volatile places on the planet because if NATO were to occupy it it would basically mean cutting off kaliningrad but if Russia were to occupy it they'd essentially be cutting off the Balkans from the rest of NATO but polish officials have claimed that Wagner are planning some sort of hybrid Warfare around the Gap coordinated with Russia's secret services and as if tensions weren't already running high enough three days ago on Tuesday first Poland rushed yet more troops to its eastern border after accusing Belarus Russia's closest Ally a violating its airspace with military helicopters around the Border Village of Bia lozar now for their part the Belarusian military have denied any such violation but locals reported hearing helicopters flying low overhead and early the same day lukashenko claimed that Poland should quote say thank you to Belarus for housing and feeding Wagner because otherwise they would have seeped through and smashed up jejov and Warsaw so with all this happening what is really going on and is there actually a risk of Wagner attacking NATO or occupying the savauke Gap well it would certainly be a terrible idea to do either not least because they'd stand no chance against NATO troops in the region as we said Wagner gave up most of their heavy Weaponry after the attempted coup and there are only a few thousand Wagner troops in Belarus anyway in this lie it seems more likely that Wagner are just there to cause some kind of Mischief probably by helping migrants across the border or possibly trying to enter NATO territory as spies nonetheless if June's attempted coup proves anything it's that nothing can be ruled out when it comes to progosian if he had the cajones to Stage a mutiny against the Kremlin he might be crazy enough to have a go at the savalki Gap and perversely the Mutiny might actually help in this context by creating genuine doubt amongst NATO about whether or not Wagner should be considered an extension of the Russian military and this would make it harder for NATO to know how to respond do they just attack Wagner or do they treat any incursion in the savalki Gap as an act of aggression by Russia and dive straight into World War III ultimately we don't know how NATO will respond or how progosian would act and a lot of the information coming out of Wagner is increasingly difficult to pass especially when we live in a world with AI and machine learning pushing us into new Realms of deception and it's also increasingly easy to manipulate and deceptively use data that's why as part of our journalism at tldr we're brushing up on our data and Analysis skills over on brilliant for instance they're predicting with probability course has helped us better understand how projections and forecasts work and therefore help us better identify when something suspicious is going on with government forecasting or take their hypothesis testing course which allows us to better analyze people's claims and also test our own assumptions and theories it's not just statistics either the interactive and engaging courses over at brilliant take you through all kinds of important topics from the worlds of maths science and computer science and as we all know these are increasingly important topics in our modern world and all of these skills can definitely help with your educational Journey or career path so take a positive step in your learning and check out everything that 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Channel: TLDR News EU

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Id: IjfBsoQd9zA

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2023