NATO Country Says Border Guards Attacked by Masked Men With Slingshots

Masked assailants in Belarusian uniforms used slingshots and threw stones at NATO member Poland's border guards, Polish authorities have said, as tensions between the two neighboring countries show few signs of abating.

A group of seven people donning Belarusian uniforms "with masked faces" threw stones at Polish patrols around the north-eastern Polish border town of Dubicze Cerkiewne on Saturday, the country's Border Guard said on Sunday.

The masked group "had slingshots and flashlights with which they blinded patrols" at around 9 p.m., staying on the Belarusian side of the border, the Border Guard added. A "special vehicle" arrived at the location, and no one was injured, the Border Guard said. Newsweek has reached out to Minsk's Foreign Ministry for comment via email.

In recent months, tensions between Warsaw and Minsk have skyrocketed, stoked by the presence of Wagner mercenaries in Russian-aligned Belarus following the aborted mercenary mutiny in late June.

In early September, Belarus accused Poland, which is one of Ukraine's most vocal supporters, of sending a military helicopter over the border, which Warsaw denied. Just weeks earlier, Polish authorities had said two Belarusian helicopters had entered its airspace. Belarus said there were "no border violations."

Poland said in mid-August it would move more than 10,000 troops to the border with Belarus, with around 4,000 of this number providing direct support for the border guards

"We move the army closer to the border with Belarus to scare away the aggressor so that it does not dare to attack us," Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said at the time.

Belarusian President—and one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most staunch allies—Alexander Lukashenko said in mid-July that Wagner mercenaries arriving and training in Belarus after leaving Russia were itching to move "westward" towards the country's border with Poland.

Wagner mercenaries "will go to see the sights of Warsaw and Rzeszów," Lukashenko said, referring to the Polish capital and one of Poland's key military hubs. Putin had already claimed, without providing evidence, that Poland's authorities "dream of the Belarusian lands," adding that Moscow would respond to aggression against Belarus "with all the means at our disposal."

The comments came after concerns were raised over the fate of the Suwałki Gap, a small strip of land running between Poland and Lithuania's border that links Belarus to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

In July, a Russian lawmaker suggested the Kremlin exiled the Wagner mercenaries to Belarus to seize control of the strategically important Suwałki Gap. "Should anything happen, we need this Suwałki Corridor very much," Andrey Kartapolov told a Russian state television broadcast.