Russia employs hybrid war tactic on its border with Finland, repeating migration crisis scenario currently observed on the Belarusian-Polish border and trying to destabilise NATO, according to analysts from the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
ISW report allows that Russia uses a known hybrid war tactic in order to artificially generate a migration crisis on the Finnish border.
“It is unlikely that these migrants would continue to remain at the Finnish border in sub-zero temperatures of their own volition after Finnish border authorities denied their entrance into Finland, suggesting that Russia is likely involved in the situation in some way,” ISW experts say.
“Russia’s apparent hybrid warfare tactic on the Russian-Finnish border is similar to Russia’s and Belarus’ creation of a migrant crisis on the Polish border in 2021 and is likely similarly aimed at destabilizing NATO,” analysts add.
ISW had previously concluded that
the Kremlin likely allowed or may have directly controlled
the artificially created migration crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border in 2021. “The Kremlin exploited the manufactured crisis in 2021 to falsely accuse NATO of aggression against Belarus,” analysts say.
On the 18th of November Finnish authorities closed down four out of eight checkpoints on the border with Russia due to increasing pressure from illegal migration. Restrictions will remain in force until the 18th of February 2024. Finland decided to impose restrictions after the state border guard found around 300 asylum seekers on the border with Russia. Most of those people came from Iraq, Yemen, Somali and Syria.
In summer 2021 a large influx of illegal migrants was found on the EU-Belarusian border. Illegal migrants continue attempts to cross the border into the EU to this day. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland consider this a hybrid attack by Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime.
Also read: Estonia also accuses Russia of increasing influx of asylum seekers
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