The number of refugees using the Belarus route is increasing. European security agencies are concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin might again be employing a nefarious strategy. Not long ago, the scenes at this border were dramatic. Three and a half years ago, groups of migrants were temporarily held back by police chains at the Polish-Belarusian border. Families wandered around the area for days. Some paid with their lives. The Presidents of Russia and Belarus, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, pursued a brutal goal: to put pressure on Western Europe by directing migrants via the Moscow-Minsk route.
These days, the news is less dramatic, and the images are less disturbing. However, the situation at the EU’s external border is again causing concern among European security circles. For instance, German police reported that officers had apprehended four asylum seekers. The three Iranians and one Syrian stated they had entered Germany via Belarus and Poland. Two days earlier, four people — two Yemeni and two Syrian nationals — had been apprehended in the same area. Their route: via Russia and Belarus to Germany. While the number of entries via this route had significantly decreased due to strong border security in Poland, the German police have recently been hearing more frequently that migrants are entering the country via Moscow or Minsk.
Investigations suggest that Russia and Belarus are once again intensifying their efforts to funnel migrants from poor and crisis-stricken regions through their countries towards the European Union. According to statistics, migration via this route had dropped significantly in January and February 2024, with fewer than 30 detections each month. However, the numbers are now rising sharply. In March, there were already 412 detections, in April 670, and by mid-May 416. The Polish border guard has also registered an increase in people entering from Belarus in recent weeks. Security circles are again referring to “hybrid warfare.”
Although the number of refugees using various routes generally increases at the beginning of summer, security agencies see a system behind this development. Without the cooperation of the respective governments, an increase in the route via Moscow and Minsk would hardly be possible: most entries into the Russian Federation occur by air, with onward travel by land. The documents related to Belarus often include short-term Russian visas, typically issued to tourists, entrepreneurs, or students.
According to investigations, half of the migrants with route indications possess Russian visas issued in their home countries. Information suggests that Russia is willingly granting entry visas in some countries to attract migrants. These migrants often fly to Moscow or St. Petersburg, from where they travel on to Belarus, then attempt to enter the EU.
The German Ministry of the Interior is officially still cautious but also suspects an increasing trend on the route via Russia and Belarus. After the ministry of Nancy Faeser recorded fewer illegal entries at the Polish border overall at the beginning of the year than in the previous year, the situation changed in March. In total, the authorities suddenly recorded 1,650 cases that month, more than the previous year (1,580 cases). According to police findings, the registered increase could mainly be due to the “seasonal increase in detections related to Belarus,” a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior said.
European security agencies also note that the origin of the refugees has changed. Unlike a few years ago, most migrants currently coming via Russia and Belarus are not from Iraq. The main countries of origin are Syria and Afghanistan. According to investigations, many also come from Somalia, Yemen, and Eritrea. According to security agencies, the route can usually be booked with flights and visas for Russia and Belarus, followed by smuggling—often leading to later dependencies for the migrants themselves. Because it is an expensive route, social benefits are often used later to pay off debts to smugglers.
German security agencies do not see migration itself as a threat. However, individual states misuse the issue to “delegitimize the target state by supposedly overwhelming it, thereby additionally weakening it and damaging its international reputation,” according to an earlier report by the Ministry of the Interior. State actors consciously accept the endangerment of human lives during the migration process. In isolated cases, there has been a connection of smuggled individuals to the terrorist group Islamic State, but only in very small numbers.
In Finland, concerns about targeted smuggling from Russia have also grown in recent months. According to the Finnish Ministry of the Interior, Russia began bringing migrants without Schengen visas to the border with Finland in the autumn of 2023. Just a few weeks after the number rose to over 500 people within a week, Finland closed the border crossings. Finland had learned that several thousand people were approaching the border. Official Russian agencies were allegedly planning the travel of migrants to the Finnish border. The findings came from, among other sources, conversations with migrants coming from Belarus, according to Finnish officials.
A confidential risk analysis by the EU border agency Frontex for 2023/2024 states that the “likelihood of exploiting irregular migration as a means of pressure” has “increased.” Frontex also sees Russia at the lever: The Kremlin is said to have the ability to influence flight routes—while official Russian authorities could also organize routes on Russian soil. The seriousness with which politics views the situation is shown by a visit from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the Belarus border just over a week ago. According to the news agency AP, Tusk accused Belarus, an ally of Russia, of conducting hybrid warfare against the West by encouraging migrants to cross the EU border. Border crossings are increasing day by day, Tusk warned. The prime minister announced that Poland would spare no expense to expand border facilities. His country will continue to invest 2.3 billion euros to secure the border.
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