Polish General Proposes To Mine Border With Belarus

Waldemar Skrzypczak said that Lukashenka is waging a hybrid war.

General Waldemar Skrzypczak, former Army Commander and former Deputy Minister of National Defence of Poland, said in an interview with Delfi that although Russia's conflict with NATO seems unlikely to him, it is necessary to build fortifications and install minefields on the border with Russia and Belarus to finally fence off potential aggression from these states.

– Lukashenka said that the actions of Poland, Lithuania and NATO forced him to deploy a large number of troops on the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian border.

– Lukashenka, who has more generals than tanks in the army, tries to frighten, and shake weapons that he does not really have or, if he has it, it got rusty. No matter how hard he tries, everyone sees that it is useless. Let me remind you that in the summer of 2022, the Kremlin forced Lukashenko to transfer most of his tanks to the Russian army after the Ukrainians destroyed the Russian armored forces. So Lukashenka's threats at the exercises of the Belarusian army a few weeks ago did not frighten either the Poles or the Lithuanians.

– Can Moscow provoke a conflict on the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian border and then try to come to the aid of the fraternal Belarusian people, who are "threatened" by NATO aggression?

– Lukashenka has nothing to provoke a conflict in the border area, the NATO forces are overwhelming, and Ukraine restrains the Russian army. The Kremlin is well aware that if Lukashenka gets involved in a military adventure against NATO member states, Russia will not be able to support him, since all relatively combat-ready units of the Russian army are involved in the war in Ukraine. As soon as the Russian General Staff begins to transfer troops from Ukraine to other places, the Ukrainians will take advantage of this and begin an offensive, maybe even on the territory of Russia. So Lukashenka knows his place and does what Putin ordered him to do – he conducts a hybrid war and contributes to the attempts of migrants to storm the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

– Could the Kremlin risk a strike on the Baltic states or Poland? Where?

– The entire border with Belarus, be it Lithuanian, Polish or Latvian, is a dangerous place. This is the territory that has become the battlefield of Lukashenka's hybrid war. The Suwalki corridor, of course, is a particularly important point, but, as I said, Lukashenka does not have troops that could threaten us yet. The Russians in Kaliningrad now also do not have significant forces: parts of the XIX Army Corps, which were based in the Kaliningrad area, are engaged in the fight against Ukraine.

I believe that the Polish and Lithuanian borders with Russia need to be strengthened with layered minefields now, in peacetime. In wartime, it may be too late to build fortifications in the border areas. I am convinced that both Lithuania and Poland should start building powerful fortifications. There's no need to hide it. Lukashenka and Putin should know that if they decide to go to war, their troops will have to overcome areas so fortified that it will require huge sacrifices on the part of their troops.