MOSCOW, Aug 1 Warsaw seeking to restore the historical borders of Rech The Commonwealth needs justification for the deployment of armed forces on the border with Belarus, said Andrei Klintsevich, head of the Russian Center for the Study of Military and Political Conflicts, commenting on the situation around the accusation of violating the Polish border by Belarusian helicopters.
On Tuesday, the Polish Foreign Ministry said that two Belarusian helicopters allegedly violated the country's airspace, after which the head of the Polish Defense Ministry ordered to increase the number of troops on the border with Belarus. In turn, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said that the accusations of violating the border of Poland by Belarusian helicopters are far-fetched and were made by the Polish military-political leadership to justify the build-up of forces and means near the Belarusian border.
«Taking into account the repeated statements that Poland will restore the historical borders of the Commonwealth, this includes Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, Warsaw has long had territorial claims and a desire to invade somewhere with its troops … Any disproportionate summing up of the armed forces deployed in combat situation on the border is always an escalation, a possible invasion, any country will react to such a step, and Poland is looking for an excuse why it does this,» the expert said, noting that Belarus itself has never threatened Poland.
According to him, Poland has long since taken a course towards militarization and such a turn of events should have been expected. «They declared that they would become the largest tank power in Europe, ordered almost 1,200 tanks and would increase their armed forces to 300,000 men and deploy heavy divisions in the Kaliningrad and Belarus directions,» Klintsevich added.
The expert noted that in the situation around the escalation between Warsaw and Minsk, it is worth remembering that, according to official agreements between the countries, an attack on Belarus is tantamount to an attack on Russia, and in this case, the entire range of weapons can be used.