Belarus has started military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, a move coming with tensions already heightened with the two NATO members over Russia-linked Wagner mercenaries moving to Belarus after their short-lived mutiny in Russia.Both Poland and Lithuania have increased border security since thousands of Wagner fighters arrived in Russian-allied Belarus under a deal that ended their armed rebellion in late June and allowed them and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to avoid criminal charges. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said the drills that began yesterday 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.”
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#Polandbelarustension #Suwalkigap #Wagnersuwalkicorridor
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Belarus has started military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, a move
00:07 coming with tensions already heightened with the two NATO members over Wagner mercenaries
00:11 moving to Belarus.
00:13 Both Poland and Lithuania have increased border security since thousands of Wagner fighters
00:18 arrived in Russia-allied Belarus under a deal that ended their armed rebellion in late June
00:23 and allowed them and their leader to avoid criminal charges.
00:27 The Belarusian defence ministry said that the drills that began yesterday are based
00:30 on experiences from the Special Military Operation, the term which Russia uses for its war in
00:36 Ukraine.
00:37 It said that the exercise includes the use of drones as well as the close interaction
00:41 of tank and motorised rifle units with units of other branches of the armed forces.
00:47 Leaders of the two nations, that is Poland and Lithuania, have said that they are bracing
00:50 for provocations from Moscow and Minsk in a sensitive area where both countries border
00:55 Belarus as well as the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
00:59 Earlier this month, two Belarusian helicopters flew briefly at low altitude into Polish airspace,
01:05 which the Belarusian authorities have denied.
01:08 That incident had happened in the Grotno region of Belarus, near the so-called Suvalki Gap,
01:13 a sparsely populated stretch of land running 96 kilometres along the Polish-Lithuanian
01:18 border.
01:20 The Suvalki Gap links the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with the
01:25 rest of the NATO alliance and separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, a heavily militarised Russian
01:30 exclave on the Baltic Sea that has no land connection to Russia.
01:36 Military analysts in the West have long viewed the Suvalki Gap as a potential flashpoint
01:40 area in any confrontation between Russia and NATO.
01:44 They worry that Russia might try to seize the gap and cut off the three Baltic states
01:48 from Poland and other NATO nations.
01:51 Meanwhile, Belarus's military has said that it is actively using Russian mercenaries to
01:55 train its troops and the exercises began as more Wagner fighters reportedly arrived in
02:00 the country.
02:02 The worry is that in a conflict with the West, Russia could sweep into the corridor simultaneously
02:07 from the East and the West, severing the European Union's Baltic countries from their allies
02:11 to the South.
02:14 It is a huge vulnerability because an invasion would cut off Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia
02:19 from the rest of NATO.
02:21 Such a move would also result in an immediate face-off between Moscow and NATO's nuclear
02:25 armed members pushing the world to the brink of world-ending confrontation.
02:30 Also in Kaliningrad, Russia has built a formidable military presence spanning nuclear weapons,
02:36 its Baltic fleet and tens of thousands of soldiers.
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