Russia is sending migrants through underground tunnels to Europe as part of its ongoing hybrid conflict with the West, writes The Telegraph.
Belarus, a Russian puppet state led by dictator Alexander Lukashenko, has used specialists from the Middle East with “a high level of expertise” to design the tunnels, Polish officials claim.
The ‘great escape’-style tactic marks a new escalation in the Kremlin’s hybrid war against Europe, in which Minsk has attempted to send tens of thousands of migrants across Poland’s eastern border.
Polish officials said the specialists who designed and dug the tunnels had a “high level of expertise.”
A Bulgarian minister claimed that Russian security services are helping migrants illegally enter Britain and other European countries.
Daniel Mitov, Bulgaria’s interior minister, said: “Illegal migration flows are an instrument for hostile regimes to destabilize the European Union and the United Kingdom. They aim to destabilize welfare systems, plus, of course, through the smuggling of radicalized individuals, they create security problems for us.”
Mitov also claimed that some non-governmental organizations in Europe may unknowingly be helping Russia and smuggling gangs.
The minister told the Times: “They are neo-Marxist groups who are trying to justify their actions through philosophical or ideological constructs. Basically, let’s take all the poor people in the world and let them settle here, absolute freedom of movement, no borders and so on.”
“So, unfortunately, we have challenges with such non-governmental organizations which, perhaps unwittingly, participate in the operations of those hostile states and criminal networks that smuggle people illegally into the territory of the EU and the United Kingdom,” he added.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “It is clear that illegal migration to Europe and beyond is being driven not only by organised crime networks seeking to make a profit, but also by hostile state actors seeking to destabilise Europe.”
“This threat is real, growing and very serious, and I have made clear that we must expand and strengthen our international cooperation to address it together. Therefore, we will continue to support Bulgaria and our other NATO allies in securing Europe’s external borders and in addressing any type of threat we face from the Putin regime, including by providing specialized equipment, intelligence and training that will help our Bulgarian counterparts protect their borders and disrupt these criminal operations,” Cooper added.