Military spending will be around 4% of GDP this year - double the NATO commitment and the highest of any NATO member. Poland has invested huge amounts in defence this year, with a budget more than 60% higher than last year. Mr Hodges was speaking after a week in which Poland has made clearer than ever the scale of its military operation.įuelled by a surge in attempted illegal migration and concerns over Wagner's presence at a training camp in Brest, Belarus's sixth-largest city and just across the Polish border, Poland has sent thousands of troops to its 250-mile eastern border with Belarus.Īnd earlier this week, Warsaw showcased its latest equipment in the country's largest military parade since the Cold War. "And if the Wagner forces do ever find themselves in any sort of engagement with NATO troops, Russia would try to disassociate themselves from whatever happened." "The Wagner contingent in Belarus would be crushed by Polish forces if they actually tried to cross the border," he told Newsweek. The US and UN have both said there's little evidence to suggest that is the case.īen Hodges, the former commanding general of US armed forces in Europe, suspects they wouldn't last long.
Yevgeny Prigozhin's mercenary group has been based there for the best part of two months, alarming Belarus's NATO-member neighbours - Poland, Latvia and Lithuania - that they might be planning an attack.
One of the great unknowns of the war this summer has been what Wagner is getting up to in Belarus.
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