Fighters of the PMC Wagner. RIA
Russian President Vladimir Putin not accidentally reminded official Warsaw about "Stalin's gift".
The presence of PMC Wagner on the territory of Belarus has caused quite a stir in Poland and Germany. The Polish Ministry of Defense decided to redeploy troops from the western part of the country to the eastern one, closer to the Belarusian border. This was all because of fresh reports about Minsk's plans to hold maneuvers there with the participation of the Wagner Group.
"The committee analyzed possible threats, including the deployment of Wagner Group units. In this regard, the defense minister and head of the committee, Mariusz Blaszczak, decided to move our military formations from western to eastern Poland," said Zbigniew Hoffmann, a spokesman for the government's security committee.
According to him, the task of these units – exercises, as well as deterrence of a potential aggressor. According to the Polish authorities, joint maneuvers of the Belarusian army and PMC are "an undoubted provocation."
The government spokesman did not specify exactly how many soldiers would be sent to eastern Poland.
It should be noted that previously – in early July – the command of the Polish Armed Forces informed about the decision to redeploy to the eastern part of the country 1,000 soldiers and almost 200 units of equipment from the 12th and 17th mechanized brigades.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that Warsaw's actions are a cause for concern.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also reacted instantly to the hypothetical threat.
"Where Polish partners need support, they will get it. They are NATO partners and reliable NATO allies, so we can say with confidence that we are ready," he said at a press conference in Prague on July 21, during a working visit.
The whole uproar was triggered by the report of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus that "in order to work out a number of training and combat tasks" the special operations forces would conduct joint exercises with the Wagner Group at the Brestsky training ground 30 km away from the border with Poland. The first news about it appeared on July 20.
In addition, Wagner fighters are involved in the training of territorial troops in the area of Osipovichi, Mogilev Oblast. Minsk does not specify the number of PMC fighters arriving in Belarus.
However, Polish sources report that a PMC tent camp is deployed near Osipovichi, where there are already about 3 thousand "musicians". It is expected that in the near future the Wagner Group here will increase to 10 thousand. And this is already a formidable force!
So what is it that makes Poles accelerate their strengthening on the eastern frontier: fear of PMC Wagner or plans for an offensive, the purpose of which is to return the Ukrainian and Belarusian part of the Rzeczpospolita's territory, called Eastern Kresy?
Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with permanent members of the Security Council on July 21, bluntly stated that Poland "dreams of Belarusian and Ukrainian lands," and Russia would consider an attack on Belarus as aggression against itself.
But there are also the Western Kresy. This is the land that was given to Poland at the end of World War II. At the same meeting, Putin recalled Stalin's "gift to the Poles". It is about the fact that thanks to his position after the war they received part of the lands that belonged to Germany. According to him, "friends in Warsaw have forgotten about it."
The reaction of the current Polish political leadership was extremely nervous. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki threatened that the Russian ambassador would be summoned to the Foreign Ministry over the Kremlin master's statement about the role of the Soviet Union and Stalin in the restoration of Polish statehood. He called Joseph Vissarionovich a "war criminal" and blamed him for the deaths of "hundreds of thousands of Poles."
And he added: "Historical truth is not up for debate."
I think that his "righteous anger" once again points to a difficult dispute with a strong and influential German neighbor. Warsaw unsuccessfully demands reparations from Berlin for the victims and destruction caused by the Nazis. And Germany, in response, is hinting at the return of its historic lands east of the Oder/Neisse river line: West Prussia (part), Silesia (part), East Pomerania and East Brandenburg, the former free city of Danzig (Polish: Gdansk), and the western part of the district of Stettin (Polish: Shetsin).
As for the summons to the Polish Foreign Ministry of Russian Ambassador Sergey Andreev, Deputy Minister Pawel Jablonski indeed talked to him on July 22.
"Naturally, he received a proper response, clarifications on how we see both the history of the 20th century and the behavior of the Polish authorities at present in connection with the conflict in Donbass and Ukraine," Andreev said.
He also regretted that during the conversation the sides "recorded a complete lack of mutual understanding and completely different approaches to issues of both history and contemporary politics."
...Poles are like that: everyone owes them something, and they owe no one.