A video released by the Polish armed forces shows an impressive column of tanks and other combat vehicles on the streets of Warsaw, preparing for the biggest military parade in Poland since the fall of communism.

In addition to tanks, the footage also shows self-propelled howitzers, rocket launchers, armored personnel carriers, infantry vehicles and other military equipment.

They will parade through the streets of Warsaw on Tuesday, August 15, when Poland celebrates Armed Forces Day.

Jacek Piotrowski, a spokesman for the Polish Army’s 1st Armored Brigade, said this year’s parade would be the biggest since 1989, with 2,000 troops, 200 combat units and 90 aircraft taking part.

Among the tanks that will be paraded are the American Abrams models and the K2, the South Korean main battle tank. The specialized website Global Firepower estimates that Poland has the 20th largest army in the world in terms of the total number of all types of armed forces.

This year’s military parade comes amid heightened tensions between Poland and Belarus after Wagner’s mercenaries arrived in the Russian satellite country for what dictator Oleksandr Lukashenko says are military exercises.

Lukashenko talked about sending mercenaries to Poland

On July 20, Belarus announced that it would transfer part of the “Wagner” mercenaries to the border with Poland for “military exercises”. Oleksandr Lukashenko later made several bellicose statements about the neighboring country, saying, for example, that Poland should be “grateful” to his regime for keeping the mercenaries under control.

The Poles “must pray that we keep them (Wagner’s mercenaries) and give them accommodation. Otherwise, they would fly away without us [graniță] and would destroy Rzeszów and Warsaw,” the Belarusian dictator said in comments made earlier this month.

“Therefore, they (Poles) should not reproach me, but should say ‘thank you,'” he added. Rzeszów is a city in southeastern Poland, near the border with Ukraine.

He joked last month that some of Wagner’s men were excited to advance into Poland and “go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszów.”

Poland has sent thousands of additional troops to its border with Belarus to respond to the possible threat, and accuses the Lukashenko regime of trying to destabilize NATO’s eastern flank. The government in Warsaw also accuses Russia and Belarus of organizing a new crisis with migrants on the eastern border of the European Union.

Last Friday, Lukashenko said he had ordered his government to resume contacts with the Polish side, which he accuses of escalating tensions.

Follow the latest events of the 537th day of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HOTNEWS.RO.