Russia 'weaponising' refugees against EU

Russia is “weaponising migration” as part of a broader campaign to extend its influence in Europe, Nato’s military chief has said, echoing German and Turkish concern.

Philip Breedlove, a US general who commands Nato forces and US forces in Europe, spoke out on Tuesday (1 March) in a hearing with the Senate’s armed services committee in Washington.

“Together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponising migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve,” he said, referring to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader and Russian ally.

Commenting on their “indiscriminate” and “non-precision” use of weapons against civilians in north Syria, he said: “I can't find any other reason for them other than to cause refugees to be on the move and make them someone else's problem.”

He issued the same warning to the House armed services committee last week.

The number of people fleeing to Europe in January and February, shortly after Russia began air strikes in Syria in September, reached 131,000 - vastly higher than for the same period last year - EU i figures say.

EU disagreement on how to handle the flow of people has prompted unilateral border restrictions, creating a build-up of 30,000 people in Greece and fears of an impending humanitarian crisis.

The Greek build-up could reach 70,000 to 100,000 people by the end of the month if nothing changes, aid agencies say.

The Russian campaign has also prompted Turkey to close its Syria border, blocking tens of thousands of refugees on the other side.

But if the Russian campaign sees Assad conquer the city of Aleppo in north Syria, Turkish diplomats say “hundreds of thousands” more people will come, creating a “security nightmare”.

Norbert Roettgen, a German MP who chairs the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, recently told Euobserver that the refugee crisis was for Russia a "welcome side effect” of the Syria war.

“The addressee of this problem is the EU as a whole,” he said.

Selim Yenel, Turkey’s ambassador to the EU, told EUobserver in a separate interview: “If they [Aleppo refugees] go into the EU and let’s say that our ‘action plan’ [on migration] doesn’t work, then what happens in Europe - shutting down borders, chaos, [German leader Angela] Merkel weakening, losing elections, the right coming back to power?”

Worse before better

Breedlove said on Tuesday that the problems would “get worse before they get better” and that refugee numbers were likely “continue to rise in 2016 as the conflict in Syria continues”.

“There is a concern that criminals, terrorists, foreign fighters and other extremist organisations will recruit from the primarily Muslim populations arriving in Europe, potentially increasing the threat of terrorist attacks,” he said.

“Continued weak economic growth [in Europe] … keeps unemployment rates high, specifically among young migrants susceptible to radicalisation,” he said.

“Local nationalists opposed to a large-scale influx of foreigners could [also] become increasingly violent,” the general said.

Jack Reed, a Democratic party senator, told the hearing: “The security implications of this [refugee] crisis are enormous, threatening to unravel a vision of Europe that has permeated the last two decades.”

’New normal’

Breedlove, who spoke in an appeal for more funds for US forces in Europe, said Russia’s refugee tactics are part of a broader strategy to restore Soviet-era influence.

He said Russia was using the old and new conflicts in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine to coerce its neighbours.

“We must not allow Russian actions in Syria to serve as a strategic distraction that leads the international community to give tacit acceptance to the situation in Ukraine as the ‘new normal’,” he said.

Noting that Nato powers and Russia were on a path of reconciliation in the 1990s, he added: “Europe is not the same continent it was when I took command.”

’Barrage of lies'

Konstantin Dolgov, a senior Russian diplomat, said in a statement on Tuesday that the refugee crisis had “naturally resulted from the irresponsible and short-sighted interference of Western countries in the internal affairs of sovereign states in the [Middle East] region”.

Sergey Kopyrkin, Russia’s deputy EU ambassador, on Tuesday also told journalists that Western support for Ukraine created “a real risk of unintentionally creating an enduring rift across the European continent”.

Breedlove in his Senate testimony also warned of the dangerous appeal of Russia’s “false narratives”.

“Russia overwhelms the information space with a barrage of lies that must be addressed by the United States more aggressively in both public and private sectors to effectively expose the false narratives pushed daily by Russian-owned media outlets and their proxies,” he said.