RUSSIA has threatened Poland after claiming it 'killed 80 foreign fighters' amid calls for NATO reinforcements.
The warning comes amid soaring tensions with the Nato-member country after Moscow claimed it has removed a Polish flag from a memorial site commemorating the killing of thousands of Poles in the Soviet Union.
Russia's defence ministry says its troops have killed "up to 80" Polish fighters in "precision strikes"in the eastern Donetsk region.
It said in a statement: "Up to 80 Polish mercenaries, 20 armoured combat vehicles and eight Grad multiple rocket launchers were destroyed in precision strikes on the Megatex zinc factory in Konstantinovka".
And the mayor of Smolensk, where the Polish flag was removed Andrei Borisov, confirmed the saying: "There cannot be Polish flags on Russian monuments.
"Even less so after the frankly anti-Russian comments by Polish political leaders.
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"The culture ministry of the Russian Federation made the right decision by removing the Polish flag. Katyn is a Russian memorial."
Meanwhile, tensions between Russia and the West have reached a boiling state after Lithuania's announcement to ban sanctioned goods crossing from the Russian mainland via its territory to Kaliningrad.
As a result,Poland has called on Nato backup in the Suwalki Gap the stretch of land that separates the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad from Belarus.
Speaking at a news conference in Brussels, the country's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: "We are going to seek the reinforcement of this corridor… in our talks with our partners from NATO.".
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It comes as last week Lithuanian authorities announced that goods subject to EU sanctions would no longer be able to pass through its territory to Kaliningrad.
Materials blocked included coal, metals, and advanced technology.
Kaliningrad's regional governor Anton Alikhanov said this ban will affect up to half of all goods destined for the small territory.
Stefan Bilas who lives in the village Rudziszki in the region says he can hear the Russians sometimes.
He told the Guardian: “I think about it every day.
“They could come any time. Kill us in our beds.
“What do I think of them? I’d better not say.”
Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union, has vocally supported Ukraine diplomatically and by supplying it with weapons.
The country has also hosted by far the largest number of Ukrainian refugees within the bloc — more than 1.1 million according to the latest UN figures.
The Katyn memorial was erected in memory of the 25,000 Poles, mostly army officers deemed anti-communist, massacred by the Soviet Union's political police in a forest near Smolensk in 1940 on the orders of Joseph Stalin.
The Soviet Union had long denied responsibility for the killings, accusing the Nazis of the crime, before admitting the truth in 1990.
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The episode poisoned relations between Russia and Poland.
In 2010, a Smolensk-bound plane carrying the Polish president crashed, killing its 96 passengers. The investigation into the incident became another source of tension after the countries tried to improve their ties.
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