MINSK, September 4. /TASS/. Poland is using the issue of the Suwalki Gap as a pretext to enter Lithuania and potentially occupy part of its territory, Andrey Bogodel, deputy head of the department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces at the Military Academy of Belarus, said in an interview with the STV TV channel.

"Every military man understands perfectly well that the Suwalki Gap does not pass through the territory of Poland alone, where there are actually no major transportation arteries, but just swamps. [The Suwalki Gap] lies further to the northwest, through the territory of Lithuania. This explains why Poland is constantly stirring up tensions in order to enter the territory of Lithuania and occupy the Vilnius Region, ostensibly for the purpose of defending this land," Bogodel said.

He also commented on the fears of the Polish leadership regarding the presence of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) in Belarus.

"They realize that no [Lithuanian] armed forces would counteract [such a move], whereas a private military company with wide-ranging experience could very well effect a serious shift in the balance of forces [in such an instance]. At the request, for example, of the people of Lithuania, let's say," the expert believes.

Bogodel also believes that "the very same Baltic states and Poland are today in the vanguard of Russophobia."

He recalled that Poland had actually transferred all of its armaments to Ukraine. "And that's why they reject these treaties on conventional weapons systems, so as not to show how they are moving these weapons systems that they transfer to Ukraine," Bogodel said.