Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak upped the ante Thursday on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Warsaw is deploying 10,000 hardened troops to “reinforce” its border with Belarus. This comes on top of 1,000 Polish troops from the 12th and 17th Mechanized Brigades that were ordered by Blaszczak to the frontier in early July after Moscow announced remnants of the Wagner Group would be relocating to Belarus following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny.

In late July, Lukashenko began playing his Wagner Group card. First, it came in the form of Prigozhin’s mercenaries training “Belarusian special forces at a military range just a few miles from the border with NATO-member Poland,” per Reuters.

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Then, days later, during a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Lukashenko claimed the remnants of Prigozhin’s forces, now bivouacked in Belarus, wanted to “take a tour to Warsaw and Rzeszow!” Several days later, Lukashenko tried passing it off as merely a “joke.”

Now, the “joke” is on him.

These are not just Polish troops on Lukashenko’s border. But NATO member-state Polish forces — and all the advanced capabilities they bring. Not to mention Article 5.

Warsaw’s decision to get tough was prompted by two Belarusian military helicopters violating its airspace near Bialowieza on August 1.

Plus, if Putin’s mil bloggers are to be believed, “Wagner’s mercenaries in Belarus are withdrawing back to Russian territory by bus in batches of 500-600.” If so, then Lukashenko’s braggadocio has left him more exposed than ever to Poland.

There are reasons to believe this might indeed be the case. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Putin’s deal with Prigozhin may have collapsed after “Lukashenko refused to finance Wagner when he discovered that Russia would not be paying for Wagner as he had evidently expected.”

Nothing is ever free in Putin’s mafia-like world, and Lukashenko may be finding that out on two fronts now: the cost of the Wagner Group's departure in terms of exposing Belarus to Ukraine and in terms of the ill-timed decision of the one-time potato farmer to thumb his nose at Warsaw. The notion of "put up or shut up" comes to mind.

Poland is in no mood to play games and is likely to extract a cost from Lukashenko. Minsk will be forced to counter Warsaw’s deployment of 10,000 troops along its border — and now, it seems, Prigozhin’s mercenaries will not be available to help. Moreover, Putin will also likely pay a price for Lukashenko’s folly in that he will be forced to draw down Belarusian troops fixing Ukrainian forces to the south and redeploy them to his border with Poland.

Lukashenko’s shenanigans with Poland are also giving Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya an opening to agitate even louder for the overthrow of Lukashenko’s regime. Warsaw, likely welcoming the same opening, just last week hosted Tsikhanouskaya’s “self-declared government-in-exile.” Moreover, as Lukashenko deals with a rapidly deteriorating and exposed military situation with Poland, it leaves Tsikhanouskaya’s messaging to resonate more clearly across the streets and towns of Belarus.

NATO has an opportunity here. The U.S. and Canada recently levied new sanctions on Belarus. They should lean heavily into putting pressure on Lukashenko by supporting the European Union's plan to shut down the border with Belarus and consider deploying a NATO Response Force into the Suwalki Gap to demonstrate their intent to defend this strategic region.

Lukashenko is exposed; waning support from Putin and Wagner, coupled with a depleted treasury, may present an opportunity for the Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya government in exile. Agitating Poland is not in his best interest.

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Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel and 30-year military intelligence officer, led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth is an economist, entrepreneur, and former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis.