Are Wagner fighters entering Poland disguised as migrants?

Scaring Poland: that was probably the goal of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin, when they met in St. Petersburg on 21 July. Lukashenko said that mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group, currently based in Belarus, would like to make “a trip to Warsaw and Rzeshov.”

Polish politicians and the Polish media reacted promptly. Also, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki commented on the possibility that the Wagner Group may be on its way toward the Polish border. Morawiecki stated that he has information that more than a hundred Wagner Group mercenaries were advancing toward the Suwalki gap, which is on the border of Lithuania and Poland between Kaliningrad and Belarus.

Meanwhile, allegations are circulating online about how Wagner mercenaries are already allegedly entering Poland almost unnoticed.

Claim: “The Wagnerians are entering Poland as migrants - claims Polsat News”, several users on Twitter posted. They are referring to the Polish media outlet Polsat News as the alleged source of that information. “People are sure that illegal immigrants from Belarus are entering the country, who are in fact fighters of the PMC Wagner,” one of the users adds.

DW fact check: Unproven

The tweets refer to an interview with the Belarusian opposition politician Pavel Latushka, who lives in exile in Warsaw. On July 28, he was a studio guest on a TV show of Polsat News. In the studio talk, he does not speak of Wagner mercenaries from Belarus entering Poland “as migrants” on a factual basis. He offers only assumptions.

In the interview, Latushka says that there may already be several thousand Wagner mercenaries in Belarus — and adds that one could imagine “that Lukashenko’s and Putin’s plans may be to direct Wagner mercenaries ‘dressed as’ migrants and provoke a local conflict on the border of a NATO country.” It is clear Latushka speaks of it on a hypothetical basis, not as fact.

Latushka’s press team confirmed this via message: “Mr Latushko did not claim that Wagner’s mercenaries ‘dressed as migrants’ were entering Poland. There is no evidence of this,” the team told DW.

The Polish prime minister also took up the issue on 29 July during a visit to a defence factory in Gliwice. There, during a press conference, he made two assumptions about the Wagner mercenaries in Belarus: First, Morawiecki said, “They will probably also try to enter Poland by posing as illegal immigrants.” Secondly, Wagner mercenaries would “probably” disguise themselves as Belarusian border guards and “help illegal immigrants enter Polish territory in order to destabilise Poland.”

These claims are mere conjectures about the future, without any evidence. The right-wing populist ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party consistently attracts attention with anti-migrant claims.

Meanwhile, political experts say that Russia’s and Belarus’ threats against Poland are staged. Russia, they say, is trying to reduce support for Ukraine with its threats against Poland. “Both Putin and Lukashenko are trying to influence them, including with threats, so that voters swing in the ‘right’ direction, namely toward those forces that are saying as part of their election campaign that Poland’s role in the war is wrong, and it is necessary to move away in order to prevent a Third World War.”

Conclusion: There is no evidence that Wagner mercenaries from Belarus are entering Poland disguised as migrants.