Tensions between Russia and NATO member Poland have been cranking up to boiling point in recent days amid Russian claims that it has killed 'up to 80 Polish mercenaries' in missile strikes.
The reported losses come on the same day that Russia confirmed it has removed a Polish flag from a memorial commemorating the murder of thousands of Poles by the Soviet Union in 1940.
To the north, Moscow has been furious over Lithuania's blocking of EU-sanctioned goods from reaching the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between the Baltic state and Poland.
This has prompted Poland to call on NATO to further bolster its security presence in the Suwalki Gap, the narrow corridor of territory that connects the three Baltic states to the rest of their NATO allies and separates Kaliningrad from Russian ally Belarus.
'We are going to seek the reinforcement of this corridor... in our talks with our partners from NATO,' Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference in Brussels after a European Union summit.
Kaliningrad and the Suwalki Gap, on Polish territory, would be ground zero for any military conflict between NATO and Russia, as Vladimir Putin would immediately move to cut the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia off from the rest of NATO and shore up the isolated exclave from inevitable NATO strikes.
This week Moscow warned of 'very tough actions' against Lithuania after deliveries of coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology were stopped passing through its territory on the way to Kaliningrad.
Russian claims of wiping out 80 Polish fighters will only add to the tensions.
'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' in the Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement which could not be independently verified.
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