A new military task force formed of four Polish army brigades will be deployed eastwards “to serve as a backup, should the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border deteriorate,” Poland’s defence minister Mariusz Blaszcak, has announced. Equipped with armoured infantry vehicles carrying RAK mortars, as well as helicopters and Bayraktar drones, the group will help to secure a border zone 400 km long and 150 km wide. Another group of 4,000 soldiers is already taking part in an operation codenamed “Gryf”, also tasked with securing the border with Belarus. “Rengaw” reads backwards as “Wagner” – the Russian paramilitary group now located in Belarus, from where it has been focusing its attentions on Poland to the west rather than Ukraine to the south. “There is no doubt whatsoever that the Belarusian regime is cooperating with the Kremlin and the attacks on the Polish border are intended to destabilise our country,” Blaszczak said. Two Russians spreading pro-Wagner propaganda were recently detained in Poland, accused of espionage. For Russian troops to step across Poland’s border in uniform might seem unthinkable, but Wagner’s mercenaries can wear whatever they like.