Danger to the West has grown deeper after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crash death, says Polish PM

The question now is whether the Wagner mercenaries will be under President Vladimir Putin’s control. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

Will Ukraine and the West be safer thanks to the killing of the ruthless leaders of the Wagner group? Rather the opposite, according to Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister. While the Wagner fighters under Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin committed atrocities and were savage in combat, the mercenaries that remain will be under the command of Vladimir Putin. And that, says Morawiecki, is no guarantee of better behaviour.

“The Wagner group under Putin’s leadership – let everyone answer the question for themselves – does that make the threat bigger or smaller?”

Poland in particular is nervous about how Wagner fighters could be used on its border with Belarus. Up to 10,000 Wagner soldiers were accommodated in camps in Belarus but their numbers had been thinning. Those who did not want to be drawn into the Russian army or join Wagner units in the Sahel have been returning to their towns and villages.

They could, however, be called up when they return and end up fighting in a different uniform, with poorer kit, less generous rations and lower salaries. One option, therefore, is that they seek work in other mercenary units, known as private military companies, and stay in or return to Belarus for a future northern offensive against Kyiv.

The concern of Poland and the Baltic states, all components of NATO’s eastern front, is that the Wagnerians help intensify the flow of refugees into the European Union across the wooded frontier. President Lukashenko of Belarus has tried this before. It is a tactic designed to confuse the western border troops and radicalise the Polish political scene as its heads for general elections on October 15.

There is nervousness about Belarus since Russia transferred tactical nuclear weapons there. Poland has been a generous supplier of weapons to Ukraine and many western arms pass through it to Ukraine. The Russian military is said to be preparing ways of disrupting this transit.

The Wagner troopers could end up transitioning from trench fighters and special forces-style raiders into political disrupters. Other private contractors who take on the orphaned Wagnerians may have closer relations with the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence.

“Wagner may be easier for the Russian military to control with Prigozhin, Utkin and other top figures out of the picture,” said John Hardie, at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. “But without its core commanders it won’t be the same organisation.”

The Times