The Daily Mail sensationally claimed on Sunday that Wagner is plotting to invade the Suwalki Corridor from Belarus, after which this narrative virally spread across the global information ecosystem to take on a life of its own. There’s no truth to this allegation, however, since it’s solely the editorial spin that this British tabloid put on the words of a leading Russian parliamentarian. The present piece will debunk this fake news about Russia’s intentions prior to analyzing the importance of what was really said.
Chairman of the Duma’s Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov inadvertently set this scandal into motion after recently saying the following on a top domestic political talk show:
“It is clear that Wagner [mercenary army] went to Belarus to train the Belarusian armed forces…[But] not only, and not so much. There is such a place as the Suwalki Corridor. Should anything happen, we need this Suwalki Corridor very much…A strike force [based on Wagner forces in Belarus] is ready to take this corridor in a matter of hours.”
As can be seen beyond any credible doubt, Kartapolov was only talking about a hypothetical scenario and not conveying his country’s forthcoming intentions like the Daily Mail falsely alleged in their piece.
They spun his words for clickbait, but this also served to fearmonger about Russia, Wagner, and Belarus, which advances the West’s narrative interests in the New Cold War. That trifecta is smeared as the new “Axis of Evil” by the media, with average Westerners now being misled by the Daily Mail into thinking that President Putin might be about to spark the apocalypse if he isn’t stopped. Accordingly, those who fall for this fake news might therefore be in favor of NATO accelerating its buildup in the east.
The above insight should show the Alt-Media Community how irresponsible it is to spew conspiracy theories about Wagner’s presence in Belarus since claiming that there’s some “5D chess master plan” involved unwittingly fuels Western fearmongering about Russia that hastens NATO’s containment plans. In reality, the group’s role in that neighboring country will be limited to improving its defenses in the face of Western Hybrid War threats such as another coup attempt and/or Belgorod-like proxy incursions.
No foreign offensive actions are planned, but that doesn’t mean that Kartapolov’s words aren’t important to pay attention to. Reading between the lines, he cleverly conveyed several points that observers would do well to reflect on. First, he discredited the conspiracy theories about why Wagner was sent to Belarus by reaffirming that they’ll only focus on training that host country’s armed forces, which protects Russia’s integrity by counteracting false claims about its supposedly aggressive intentions.
The second point is that he indirectly reminded everyone of Wagner’s battlefield finesse by talking about a hypothetical scenario where they might be ordered to go on the offensive. This reinforces their hard-earned reputation as being among the most formidable forces that Russia has fielded since World War II, which directly leads to the third point about how they might be ordered to secure this geostrategic corridor in the event that NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine turns into a larger conflict.
What’s so significant about the last-mentioned point is the suggestion that Wagner still takes commands from the Kremlin, thus segueing into the fourth point regarding the outcome of President Putin’s meeting with its leaders in the days after their chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed coup attempt. There was nothing conspiratorial about this as explained in detail here since it simply concerned the Russian leader requesting their feedback about how best to restructure the group while still retaining its efficiency.
And finally, the last point to be discerned by reading between the lines of Kartapolov’s words is that Wagner remains a bastion of Russian patriots in spite of some members previously being misled by their chief into committing treason. After all, if there were any lingering doubts about their reliability, then he’d never suggest that they’d be ordered to secure the Suwalki Corridor in the worst-case scenario of a direct hot conflict with NATO. This shows that the Kremlin and Wagner have truly reconciled.
To summarize the importance of this scandal, it’s worth paying much more attention to what Kartapolov actually said than what the Daily Mail sensationally claimed for clickbait. Although the West is exploiting the latter’s fake news for information warfare purposes, astute observers who read between the lines of this official’s words will learn a lot about what’s really going on behind the scenes in Russia nowadays, namely that Wagner has returned to its role in defending that country’s national security interests.
