Helicopters believed to have violated Poland's border earlier in August allegedly belong to a guard team of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, a member of the European Parliament and the former Polish prime minister, said on Thursday, without specifying where the information came from
WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd August, 2023) Helicopters believed to have violated Poland's border earlier in August allegedly belong to a guard team of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, a member of the European Parliament and the former Polish prime minister, said on Thursday, without specifying where the information came from.
"These helicopters have been identified. They belong to Lukashenko's guard unit. Lukashenko arrived in his residence in the Bialowieza Forest at that time. He is in the village of Viskuli, seven kilometers (four miles) from the border. His favorite lake is located even closer to the border, just two kilometers away. He visits it very often," Cimoszewicz told Polish broadcaster RMF FM.
The former Polish prime minister said that the incident with the helicopters could have been both an intentional violation of the border or an accident.
Regardless of the nature of the incident, it proved that Poland's air defense has systematic flaws, Cimoszewicz added.
"Despite assurances that Polish airspace is safe, that everything is well organized, it is clear that something is not functioning right. This was not the first such a case," he told the broadcaster.
The former Polish prime minister, who lives near the area of the alleged border violation, said he had heard Belarusian helicopters flying in about 200 meters (218 yards) from his house.
On Tuesday,�the Polish Defense Ministry said that two Belarusian helicopters had allegedly intruded into the country's air space. Following the incident, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak ordered an increase in the military contingent on the border with Belarus. The Belarusian Defense Ministry replied that Minsk had provided Warsaw with objective air control data indicating an absence of any grounds for the Polish accusations.
The developments came less that a week after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that over 100 fighters of Russia's Wagner Group private military company had moved near the Suwlaki Gap � a narrow stretch of Polish and Lithuanian territory that separates Belarus from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The Polish prime minister called it an attempt to help illegal migrants to enter Polish territory.
