{"id":271406,"date":"2023-07-24T07:40:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T07:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=271406"},"modified":"2023-07-26T07:39:06","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T07:39:06","slug":"putin-planning-to-use-wagner-fighters-to-invade-key-strategic-strip-of-land-straddling-border-between-poland-and-lithuania-in-move-against-natos-baltic-states-crony-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=271406","title":{"rendered":"Putin &#8216;planning to use Wagner fighters to invade key strategic strip of land straddling border between Poland and Lithuania in move against NATO&#8217;s Baltic states&#8217;, crony reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>Russia is &#8216;threatening&#8217; the Suwalki corridor &#8211; strategically important land<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Putin parliamentarian\u00a0Andrey Kartapolov announced the threat on state TV<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>However Poland&#8217;s intelligence service insists it is monitoring the Wagner threat<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Will Stewart, Eleanor Dye and Hannah McDonald \u2013 Daily Mail July 16, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_271408\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Sulwaki-corridor.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-271408\" class=\"wp-image-271408\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Sulwaki-corridor.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"269\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-271408\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Suwalki Corridor. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Russia is threatening to use its Wagner mercenary army to invade NATO&#8217;s &#8216;weakest link&#8217; &#8211; a key strategic strip of land straddling the border between Poland and Lithuania, one of Putin&#8217;s cronies has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>A top Putin parliamentarian revealed on Russian state television that mercenary forces were ready to march on the sought-after territory &#8216;in a matter of hours&#8217;, in a move that could trigger World War Three.<\/p>\n<p>The 60-mile Suwalki Corridor &#8211; or Gap &#8211; that spans from north west Belarus to the southeastern border of Russia&#8217;s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has massive strategic importance for NATO and the EU &#8211; as well as Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>For the West, it is the only land link to the three ex-Soviet Baltic republics &#8211; Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia &#8211; which are seen as vulnerable to Putin if the current east-west tension worsens.<\/p>\n<p>For Russia, control of the corridor would give a land link <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10952257\/Now-Russia-threatens-Poland-Putin-kills-80-Polish-fighters-precision-strikes-east-Ukraine.html\"><strong>Kaliningrad<\/strong><\/a>, the main base of Putin&#8217;s Baltic Fleet, and firm Kremlin ally Belarus.<\/p>\n<p>Reservist Col-Gen Andrey Kartapolov, now an MP who is the loyalist chairman of the Russian parliament&#8217;s defence committee, told state TV: &#8216;It is clear that Wagner [mercenary army] went to Belarus to train the Belarusian armed forces\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;[But] not only, and not so much. There is such a place as the Suwalki Corridor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Should anything happen, we need this Suwalki Corridor very much\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;A strike force [based in Wagner forces in Belarus] is ready to take this corridor in a matter of hours.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>His &#8216;shock fist&#8217; land grab plan would hit sparsely populated territory which has been labelled NATO&#8217;s &#8216;Achilles heel&#8217; or &#8216;soft underbelly&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Because it could be the first point of contact in a Third World War, the corridor has been branded &#8216;the most dangerous place on earth&#8217;.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_135845\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/kaliningrad-map.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-135845\" class=\"wp-image-135845\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/kaliningrad-map.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"270\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-135845\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaliningrad. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A Russian move here with state-backed Wagner would likely trigger NATO&#8217;s clause 5, setting the Alliance against Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Poland is rapidly rearming due to the threat from Moscow, and Germany is to deploy 4,000 troops permanently in Lithuania as NATO strengthens its presence in the Baltic states.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of Wagner troops have arrived in Belarus in recent days.<\/p>\n<p>More were seen today on the road in Russia&#8217;s Lipetsk region heading for the landlocked states. An agreement was reached to move the troops to Belarus after Wagner halted their armed mutiny on 24 June.<\/p>\n<p>Poland&#8217;s intelligence service has however said it is monitoring the Wagner mercenary threat, as its\u00a0 deputy head of special services Stanislaw Zaryn said there &#8216;may be several hundred of them now&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The Polish services are monitoring the situation to find out how many Wagnerites will end up in Belarus,&#8217; he said, according to The Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p>The latest incendiary move from Russia comes less than 24 hours after Putin claimed that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12304347\/Vladimir-Putin-claims-forces-sufficient-stockpile-cluster-bombs.html\"><strong>Russia has a &#8216;sufficient stockpile&#8217; of cluster munitions<\/strong><\/a> that he threatened to use if Ukraine deploys the controversial weapons.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12304775\/Putin-threatening-use-Wagner-fighters-invade-strip-land-Poland-Lithuania.html\">Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The chairman of the Russian parliament\u2019s defence committee claims that Putin plans to seize the Suwalki corridor, a move that would isolate the Western-aligned Baltic states and potentially trigger direct conflict with NATO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271406"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271442,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271406\/revisions\/271442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}