National elections will be on time says ruling party leader

Poland's parliamentary elections will take place on time despite the threat posed by the presence of the Wagner Russian mercenary group in Belarus, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has said.

During a family picnic in the western town of Połajewo, Jarosław Kaczyński, who is also deputy prime minister, said that beyond Poland's eastern border, "we have a new situation, a new threat."

He described the Wagner group as "an exceptionally dangerous armed formation" not formally part of any national army being a private company but that "everybody knows it is a tool of Russia."

Kaczyński went on to say Wagner's presence in Belarus was not accident and that they were there to "create some new threat, to organise provocations, to maybe penetrate our border."

The PiS leader said the Polish government did not underestimate the threat but that it would not stop the country maintaining its democratic processes.

"The elections, regardless of what happens there... will be on time," he said.