Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday taunted Poland over the presence of Russian Wagner mercenaries near the NATO country's border, saying Warsaw should thank him for keeping them in check.

State news agency Belta quoted him on Tuesday as saying that the Poles “should pray that we’re holding onto (the Wagner fighters) and providing for them. Otherwise, without us, they would have seeped through and smashed up Rzeszow and Warsaw in no small way. So they shouldn’t reproach me, they should say thank you.”

    • TornadoRex@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      According to the U.S. military, the presence of U.S. special operations personnel in the targeted base elicited a response by coalition aircraft, including AC-130 gunships, F-22 Raptor and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and B-52 bombers.[6][14][7] Nearby American artillery batteries, including an M142 HIMARS, shelled Syrian forces as well.[14]

      Holy shit

      • InverseParallax@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Casualties:

        United States: None 1 SDF fighter wounded

        Syrian claim: 55 killed
        U.S. claim: Approximately 100 killed
        SOHR claim: 68 killed
        Unofficial Russian claims: 80-100 killed, 200 wounded

        This was Wagner, so I don’t think this is as threatening as Luka does.