Several members of Wagner are in Belarus (Image: GETTY)

       The recent threatening remarks made by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko about the Wagner Group may aim at creating opposition in the West to Ukraine joining NATO, a geopolitical analyst believes.

       Irina Tsukerman, president at Scarab Rising, downplayed the importance of Wagner as a paramilitary militia while stressing it remains a useful tool in Moscow's "information warfare".

       Referring to Mr Lukashenko's confession to Vladimir Putin he is trying to prevent the Wagner mercenaries currently stationed in Belarus from attacking Poland, Ms Tsukerman told Express.co.uk: "Wagner's purpose is at least as much information warfare as it is its military utility, possibly more.

       "For that reason, Lukashenko's comments should be viewed more as propaganda than a real military threat."

       The analyst noted the high number of casualties experienced in Ukraine by Wagner - with the group's leader himself, Yevgeny Prigozhin, previously saying he lost some 20,000 men during the months-long battle for Bakhmut - suggests "any confrontation with Poland would end with Wagner being wiped out immediately".

       READ MORE: March on Poland - Putin wouldn’t dare - it’d be the death of Russia

       Ukraine wants to join NATO (Image: Getty)

       Putin, who recently claimed without showing any evidence that Warsaw is seeking to annex Belarus and Russia would respond to a similar move "using all means at our disposal", would also be unlikely prepared to spread his military resources on another front while it is facing the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the analyst said.

       She added: "Lukashenko's aim then is to deceive the Western populations into opposing Ukraine's entry into NATO or outright discontinuing any sort of support for NATO presence in Europe, and possibly to divert attention from the real goals of Wagner presence in Belarus."

       Ukraine has been pressing Western nations to set a timeframe for its accession to the military alliance, but NATO members have yet to commit to it.

       Despite the coup attempted against the Russian military leadership by the paramilitary group in late June, Ms Tsukerman believes Wagner is still linked to Russia and would not act without "explicit but covert direction from Putin".

       She said: "Much of Russia's information ops are about generating noise, creating opinion divisions, and causing speculation and obfuscation of real motives - the wilderness of mirrors in intelligence parlance.

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       Yevgeny Prigozhin on the evening of the attempted coup (Image: GETTY)

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       "So what then is the real threat here? Russia has been at the forefront of working to influence popular opinion including in Eastern Europe and turning it in its favours."

       Ms Tsukerman concluded the presence of Wagner troops in Belarus is unlikely to represent a "conventional military threat" to NATO.

       But this doesn't mean Mr Prigozhin's men won't have the potential to be damaging to Poland and elsewhere, albeit thorough intelligence gathering and disinformation efforts among other means.

       The Belarusian president, who is often addressed in Western media as Europe's last dictator, welcomed on his soil Wagner troops following the astonishing short-lived mutiny that took place between June 23 and 24.

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       During a face-to-face meeting with Putin last weekend, Mr Lukashenko - one of the Russian president's closest allies who played a key role in the invasion of Ukraine last year by allowing Russian troops to pass through Belarus - said he is beginning "to be bothered by the PMC Wagner, asking to go to the West".

       He continued: "I said, why do you want to go to the West there? And quietly, we're in control of what is happening: 'Well, we'll go on a tour to Warsaw and Rzeszow'."

       Mr Lukashenko added he is keeping these forces "in the centre of Belarus as agreed" as part of the deal brokered following the attempted coup, and that he would not like to redeploy the forces to Poland because they are "in a bad mood."

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