Did the Minister of National Defense of Lithuania say that Poland is going to mine its border with Belarus? No, that's not true: In an interview with the Lithuanian media group LRT, Arvydas Anushauskas commented on possible measures Lithuania might take in response to the threat posed by Wagner mercenaries deployed in Belarus. Polish politicians, for their part, are discussing their security measures on the Belarusian border.
On August 4, 2023, the claim appeared in a video posted on the TikTok account @alex_belarussian (archived here). The video begins by claiming (translated from Russian by Lead Stories staff):
Lithuanian Defense Minister Anushauskas announced Poland's plans to mine the border with Belarus.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 9 11:29:06 2023 UTC)
In his TikTok post, the author quotes an interview of the Lithuanian National Defense Minister with the media group LRT on August 1. However, Arvydas Anushauskas did not say that Poland has planned to mine the border with Belarus.
The host and the minister discussed Poland's reaction to the settlement of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus. Some Polish politicians say that the border with Belarus should be mined, while others, evaluating this and other Polish actions, believe that these are the results of the activities of politicians before the elections in Poland. President Duda has called Polish parliamentary elections for October 15, 2023, in which members of the Sejm and Senate will be chosen. Anushauskas replied (as translated from Lithuanian by Lead Stories staff):
In this case, Polish politicians are reacting, and communicating, but I must admit that I have also consulted with the army, and we are not going to communicate about our actions now.
In response to a request from the Border Guard, Warsaw has agreed to send 1,000 additional troops to the border with Belarus, the Polish state news agency PAP reported on August 8.
