Ukraine war: Poland doubles border troops, Russia vows response to Western 'threats', drone attacks

The Polish government announced on Wednesday it is planning to deploy an additional 2,000 troops to its border with Belarus, twice the number the Border Guard agency had requested.

In an interview with state news agency PAP, a deputy interior minister, Maciej Wasik announced the decision, accusing Minsk of organising illegal migration. 

However, the fallout from Russia's war against Ukraine has brought other concerns, including the presence of Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries in Belarus this summer after their short-lived mutiny in Russia.

Earlier this week Belarus also began military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, with two Belarussian helicopters flying briefly into Polish airspace recently. 

Warsaw called this a deliberate provocation, though some have argued the current government is leveraging security concerns ahead of upcoming elections. 

Amid soaring political tensions in 2020, large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and Africa were helped to the border by Minsk, which organised flights and visas - something Warsaw considered to be a form of “hybrid warfare."

Poland has mostly pushed them back into Belarus, creating a situation likened to ping pong. 

Threats from Western countries on Russia's borders "require a rapid and adequate response", the Russian defence minister said on Wednesday, citing their support for Ukraine and the accession of Sweden and Finland into NATO. 

Meeting senior military officials, Sergei Shoigu detailed at length the "threats" to Russia, which he said have "multiplied" in the west and northwest in recent years. 

One threat Shoigu mentioned was the "indirect war" waged by the West against Russia, "by providing unprecedented support to the puppet regime in Kyiv".

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