NATO emphasizes the risk of the possible move of the Wagner Group to Belarus

Ahead of an annual NATO summit scheduled for next month, leaders of alliance members Estonia and Poland on Wednesday stressed the need for vigilance over the possible move of the Wagner mercenary group to Belarus.

Their comments came after Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Russian mercenary leader, reportedly arrived in Belarus on Tuesday, days after being offered exile as part of a deal in which he turned down a weekend uprising against the Russian military leadership.

Belarus President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko said on Tuesday that members of the group who had taken part in the uprising had been offered an “abandoned” military base in his country, raising concerns among Belarus’s neighbors about the force that has moved in front of established their door. The remaining Wagner members have been given the opportunity to sign contracts with the Russian army.

Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister and one of Ukraine’s staunchest backers, called Belarus a “co-aggressor” of Russia in its war with Ukraine.

“Belarus is unpredictable and dangerous, and that hasn’t changed,” she said at a joint press conference in Brussels with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “We are ready for all developments.”

Also on Wednesday, the presidents of Poland and Lithuania made a surprise visit to Kiev to show their support for Ukraine’s bid to join NATO.

At a press conference following their meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Polish leader called the possible transfer of the Wagner group to Belarus a threat to allies on NATO’s eastern flank. At the same time, Mr. Zelensky that he believed that the Wagner forces remaining in the occupied territories of Ukraine posed no threat and that the situation was “under control”.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said the Wagner group’s presence in Belarus could be “a potential danger” to his country and to Lithuania, which borders Belarus.

Both Ms Kallas and Mr Duda urged NATO to remain vigilant for the possible presence of Wagner fighters in Belarus. NATO is expected to approve in detail plans to strengthen its eastern flank at the alliance summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11.

Ms Kallas said at the press conference in Brussels that Estonia, which donates more than 40 percent of its military budget to Ukraine, would increase its financial support to the Ukrainian army to 3 percent of its GDP

And Mr Stoltenberg said Wagner’s uprising showed “that President Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine is a major strategic mistake”. But he warned NATO allies not to underestimate Moscow’s capabilities.

“We must continue to support Ukraine and we must keep our defenses strong to send a clear signal to Moscow and Minsk that NATO is protecting every inch of Allied territory,” he said, referring to the governments of Russia and Belarus. Russia. He said it was too early to say what Wagner’s possible move could mean for the region.

At the end of May, NATO, which collectively defends the Baltic states, ended an ambitious military exercise in Estonia called Spring Storm involving some 14,000 troops from at least 11 countries. NATO’s reach in the Baltic states was significantly increased by Finland’s entry into the military alliance in March. Gaining access to that country’s military and to Finland’s airspace, ports and shipping lanes also improved NATO’s ability to deter Moscow’s aggression.

Ms. Kallas made additional remarks after the press conference in Brussels, saying it was “increasingly clear now that Ukraine is winning this war”, and that it was time to step up the pressure on Russia and send a strong message of alliance unity and perseverance to Moscow.

She also urged the European Union to use confiscated Russian financial assets to help fund Ukraine’s reconstruction, while admitting that some member states were opposed to creating a legal precedent for this.

The war in Ukraine will end, she said, “when Russia realizes it made a mistake and cannot win this war.” But its aggression, she said, must not be rewarded with territorial gains or it will try again, as it did after annexing Crimea in 2014 and met with a weak Western response.