Putin threatens to use Wagner fighters to invade Nato’s ‘weakest link’ in Poland and Lithuania ‘in a matter of hours’

RUSSIA has threatened to use its Wagner private army to invade Nato’s "weakest link" in Poland and Lithuania - a move that would likely trigger a Third World War.

A top Putin parliamentarian claimed on state television the mercenary group is ready to strike in "a matter of hours" from Belarus.

The Suwalki Corridor - or Gap - is a 60-mile strip of land straddling the border between Poland and Lithuania.

It has massive strategic importance for Nato and the EU - as well as Russia.

For the West, it is the only land link to the three ex-Soviet Baltic republics - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - which are seen as vulnerable to Putin if current tensions worsen.

For Russia, control of the corridor would give a land link between the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, main base of Putin’s Baltic Fleet, and firm Kremlin ally Belarus.

Reservist Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov, now an MP who is the loyalist chairman of the Russian parliament defence committee, told state TV: “It is clear that Wagner [mercenary army] went to Belarus to train the Belarusian armed forces…

“There is such a place as the Suwalki Corridor.

“Should anything happen, we need this Suwalki Corridor very much…

“A strike force [based in Wagner forces in Belarus] is ready to take this corridor in a matter of hours.”

His “shock fist” land grab plan would hit sparsely populated territory which has been labelled Nato’s “Achilles heel” or “soft underbelly”.

Because it could be the first point of contact in a Third World War, the corridor has been branded “the most dangerous place on earth”.

A Russian move here with state-backed Wagner would likely trigger Nato’s clause 5, setting the Alliance against Russia.

Poland is rapidly rearming due to the threat from Moscow, and Germany is to deploy 4,000 troops permanently in Lithuania as Nato strengthens its presence in the Baltic states.

Thousands of Wagner troops have reportedly arrived in Belarus in recent days, three weeks after their aborted mutiny.

More were seen on Sunday on the road in Russia’s Lipetsk region heading for the landlocked state.

An agreement was reached to move the troops to Belarus after Wagner halted their armed mutiny on 24 June.