Why do Lithuanian politicians responsible for national security, who presumably receive the same intelligence information, speak so differently about possible threats? And is Lithuania really doing enough if the threats are as serious as the President keeps stressing?
Different assessments
On Thursday, President Nausėda, who met with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the Suwałki region, announced that around 4,000 troops may already be deployed in Belarus. Some Wagner mercenaries are said to be close to Lithuania, having taken up positions in the Grodno region.
At the same time, the Head of State indicated that 10,000 Wagner soldiers are planned to be deployed in Belarus. The risk of provocations has increased.
„This is a serious force. These are not some inexperienced boys who do not know how to handle weapons. These are people with battlefield experience who are really dangerous – not least because they have few moral scruples and a dark criminal past,“ said Nausėda.
At the same time, Minister of National Defence Anušauskas, commenting on all the measures already taken by Poland in relation to Wagner, called for an end to dancing to the disinformation messages of Vladimir Putin and Aliaksandr Lukashenko.
„The Wagner emblem has a skull on it – how scary... More such emblems could be made, but how does that change the mercenaries' supply of ammunition (none), heavy equipment (left in Russia) and finally, brains (never had)?
Lukashenko can barely hold off Prigozhin, and Putin can barely hold off Lukashenko? Ane? Have you believed it yet? After all, there is still the „terrible“ TikTok army, which never reaches the battlefield.
So maybe we should learn to distinguish between the real and the disinformation in the information war,“ wrote Anušauskas on his Facebook account.
What does the difference in assessment mean?
Mindaugas Lapinskas, a communication expert, told the news portal lrytas.lt that he does not consider the rhetoric of politicians to be differently aggressive as long as their actions do not contradict each other.
„As they say about tricksters – you have to look at their hands, but in politics, you have to look at what politicians do, not just at what they say.
We cannot say that we have different actions from one or the other camp of politicians. If Mr Nausėda, for example, were to order the redeployment of the army somewhere, we could say that this has gone beyond rhetoric. The fact that they have different views is not a big problem.
The army and the intelligence authorities are doing their job, and it is the job of the politicians to raise those issues. There does not seem to be a clash of actions, where one gives one order, and the other gives another,“ he stressed.
Lapinskas suggested that Nausėda, who has chosen more aggressive rhetoric about possible threats, might have two goals.
Firstly, it could be a way of pushing back against conservatives who, unlike the President, did not support the same restrictions on Belarusians as on Russian citizens.
The communications expert does not rule out the possibility that Nausėda's domestic policy team may have commissioned an opinion poll and seen that the population, for example, does not see Nausėda as strong on national security and that he might want to establish himself as a strong decision maker by using tough rhetoric.
Finally, the threat-emphasising positions of Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki, according to Lapinski, should be seen in the context of the upcoming Polish parliamentary elections: „You always thicken the colours during the campaign“.
Calls for preparation now
Meanwhile, military expert, retired Colonel Vaidotas Malinionis, believes Lithuania should react to Wagner's threats more strongly than it does now.
He believes that closing the border, which President Nausėda has identified as an extreme measure, would be a rational step to be taken together with Poland and Latvia.
„The Wagner group is not here to harvest potatoes – the group costs billions a year to maintain. The rhetoric of Russia and Belarus, the heating up of tensions, the helicopters flying into Poland, the jokes of Lukashenko and Putin about mercenaries wanting to go to Warsaw – this is something that needs to be addressed.
We need to think about closing the border and engineering fortifications,“ Malinionis told lrytas.lt.
The expert is convinced that Lithuania could already start preparing for mine-laying and digging holes.
„All the more so because the Latvian Border Guard Service commander yesterday published information on Polish television that they are monitoring the Belarusian border, apparently listening to their conversations, and they have concluded that the Belarusian border guards are preparing for some aggressive actions – of unknown scale.
The Belarusian border guards do not only include border guards, but they are probably referring to the fact that there are also Wagner mercenaries there,“ Malinionis said.
What difference does the location and the number of mercenaries make?
President Nausėda pointed out that the Grodno region, where some of the Wagner mercenaries are deployed, „is very convenient for provocations on both the Polish-Belarusian and Lithuanian-Belarusian borders“.
Malinionis suggested that the choice of location is an attempt to reduce the vigilance of Western countries and create a surprise effect – if there is a long period of talk about an imminent attack and then no attack, the threats may be ignored in the long run.
And 10,000 mercenaries, according to the expert, would change the security situation. Now Wagner fighters do not have heavy weapons – they are not mechanised, they do not have artillery or aviation. However, as Malinionis pointed out, they know how to operate all this equipment.
Therefore, he said, one should not rule out the scenario that, for example, under the pretext of the Zapad 2023 exercise, all the necessary equipment could be located in Belarus, and by mid-September, five mechanised brigades with artillery would be in Lithuania's vicinity, already fully prepared.
But why would the Russians need any provocation or action against NATO countries when the war they started in Ukraine is still ongoing? Malinionis does not rule out the possibility that the Kremlin might want to strengthen its bargaining power with the West in this way.
The expert stressed that Russia is not only engaged in various provocations on NATO's eastern flank but also in the Black Sea and in Africa.
„At the same time, here in our neighbourhood, Western countries are tempted to admit that this is an out-of-control group in order to avoid a nuclear conflict.
The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons here is one more thing that will 'reassure' our allies' decision-makers to avoid nuclear conflict,“ he said.
