As of: March 2, 2024, 7:30 p.m
By: Kilian Beck
Comments
Press
Split
Apparently the Wagner Group is working with people smugglers in Libya.
Is there a big plan from the Kremlin to influence the EU election?
Brussels – Russia could apparently increase its efforts to exploit migrants.
According to the British daily
Telegraph,
the Kremlin is planning to set up a “15,000-strong border police” in the failed state of Libya.
The newspaper reported this on Thursday (February 29), citing internal Kremlin documents.
The unit should consist of former militia members and control who gets on a boat to Europe.
Last year, the EU border protection agency Frontex recorded around 380,000, the highest number of illegal border crossings into Europe since 2016. Now the British newspaper suspects that there could be a plan to influence the EU elections.
According to the state news agency ITAR TASS, migrants in the Russian region of Murmansk are given bicycles to travel to Finland.
© IMAGO/Lev Fedoseyev
Frontex risk analysis: Russia is “increasingly likely to exploit migrants”
In its current risk analysis, the authority wrote in August 2023 of an “increasing probability” that Russia and Belarus would “instrumentalize” migrants.
This is apparently what happened at the Finnish-Russian border, for example.
Russia has been allowing migrants to be brought to the border with Finland for months.
The NATO country then closed the border in November and built a fence around 200 kilometers long.
Poland closed its border with Belarus, which did a similar thing, in 2021.
The ultra-conservative PiS government, which has since been voted out, set up a restricted zone along the border and relied on a violent border regime.
Since then, human rights groups and migration researchers have documented dozens of deaths and hundreds of missing people there.
Italy's Foreign Minister Tajani sees Wagner influencing human smuggling in Libya
The EU border protection agency emphasized last summer that Russia and its allies do not only have their sights set on the EU's eastern border.
One must expect that “Russia and its allies and proxies” in the south will try to specifically bring migrants to the EU’s external borders.
An important part of this is the contingent of the Wagner mercenary force in Libya, said conservative Italian Foreign Minister Antonion Tajani to the
Telegraph
.
His country has secret service information that Wagner members work “very actively” with people smugglers and militias involved in people smuggling.
Wagner mercenaries have been present in Libya for at least five years, fighting alongside Khalifa Haftar's troops in the civil war.
They are linked to mass killings and kidnappings, the trade journal
Foreign Policy
reported .
Terrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler from the Counter Extremism Project estimated in an
IPPEN.MEDIA
interview that it was likely that “General Haftar” and his troops were involved in the crimes in Libyan refugee camps and torture prisons.
People flee Africa to Europe in overcrowded wooden boats.
(Archive photo) © Santi Palacios/dpa
My news
Russian super jet spotted over Ukraine – will the Su-57 now be used?read
“NATO will go to war with Russia”: Lavrov mocks leaked “plans” read
1 hour ago
Wiretapping scandal in the Bundeswehr: Ministry gives new details about the Taurus recording
New asylum rule: In future, dental treatment will only be possible after three years - exception for Ukrainians
For attack on Russia: Finland advises Ukraine to use Western weapons – read “Completely legitimate”.
Ukraine commando falls into Russian ambush – serious setback on the southern front read
Tajani's information seems plausible.
At the same time, however, the EU also equipped the so-called Libyan coast guard with boats.
Der
Spiegel
documented in 2023 that these militia members regularly brought ships from the Mediterranean back to the war-torn country.
It was said that this would be coordinated by Frontex.
Sergei Sukhankin from the Jamestown Foundation think tank told the
Telegraph
that the Wagner group had several bases along the Central African escape route.
Wagner mercenaries are particularly active in “key states” such as Sudan, where a bloody civil war is currently raging with tens of thousands of deaths, and the Central African Republic, which is also torn by a civil war.
A new barracks for 2,000 mercenaries is even planned in the Central African Republic, said Sukhankin.
The expert believes that Wagner also has the goal of bringing refugees to Europe.
Before the European elections: Putin allegedly wants to “influence” public opinion
The aim here, at least that's what one source from British security authority circles told the London newspaper: Putin wanted to "influence public opinion at a crucial time".
Effectively, migration can be used to “control elections,” the source claimed.
The EU will elect a new parliament in June 2024, and the radical right is already on the rise in many countries.
The Berlin party researcher Endre Borbáth recently emphasized in an
IPPEN.MEDIA
interview that the rise of right-wing radicals depends on a “variety of factors”.
In addition, there is already a humanitarian catastrophe at the EU's external border: in December 2023 alone, the non-governmental organization 72
Border Violence Network
documented 72 violent rejections in the Western Balkans, excluding a large number of unreported cases.
(
KB
)