“Poland should thank us for holding back the Wagner fighters. Without us, they would have swept through and destroyed Rzeszow and Warsaw in an instant,” Mr Lukashenko said.

On July 23, at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said that Wagner forces were trying to move west, towards Warsaw and Rzeszow - a Polish city less than 100 km from the border with Ukraine.

Following a late June mutiny in Moscow led by leader Wagner Prigozhin, the group moved to Belarus as part of a deal with the Kremlin brokered by Belarusian President Lukashenko.

Since arriving in Belarus, Wagner members have begun training Belarusian forces and have been deployed near the Polish border to conduct joint exercises with the Belarusian military. This has become a major concern for Warsaw, prompting Poland to begin moving more than 1,000 additional troops closer to the border.

On July 29, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said a group of 100 Wagner fighters had moved closer to the Belarusian city of Grodno, near the Polish border, describing the situation as "increasingly dangerous".

Mr Lukashenko initially denied the information, but then recanted his denial: “I heard that recently Poland was panicked by the information that a detachment of about 100 people was arriving at the border area. There is no Wagner detachment of 100 people moving there. And if there is, it is only to transfer its military experience to the Belarusian brigades in Brest and Grodno."

According to Mr Lukashenko, Ukraine is "actively drawing mercenaries" into the conflict and "starting to draw in Poland".

Phuong Thao (Source: Reuters)