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EU-migration by way of Russia: is Moscow or Brussels to blame? [1]

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Date: 2024-04 

Russia seems an odd place for migrants to cross into Europe. It’s out of the way, actively invading Ukraine, and much of its borderland is hostile, snowy forest. But now that the southern and eastern routes into Europe are so dangerous, its implausibility is making it attractive.

To be clear, the route through Russia isn’t new; it caused a clash between Brussels and Moscow back in 2015-16. But it’s been so quiet of late that it wasn’t even mentioned in Frontex’s 2024 border crossing statistics. That seems to be changing. Some 900 people made the crossing last November alone, raising concerns in Helsinki and Brussels.

Predictably, European authorities have cried foul. Finnish officials have accused Russia of instrumentalising migration to retaliate against Finland for joining NATO in April 2023. And it is unlikely that they’re entirely wrong. But their finger pointing hides their own complicity.

New migration routes open up when old ones become too dangerous. And deadly pushbacks, detention and deportation have certainly made the Balkans and Mediterranean dangerous for people on the move. This lack of better options is what is causing migrants and smugglers to set their sights on Moscow, and the freezing forest routes beyond it to Europe.

From Tunisia to Helsinki, via Moscow

“Everything else I tried before had failed” said Amir, a 34-year-old Tunisian man, phoning from a hostel in Helsinki a few weeks after crossing from Russia. “I didn’t want to get here this way. But do you know how many times my visa applications got rejected without them giving me any reason why?”

Amir is from Kabaria, an impoverished neighbourhood on the edge of Tunisia’s capital Tunis. After failing to get a travel visa, he said he next tried to find a European employer who would sell him a work contract. But when he realised that method put him at high risk of getting scammed, he turned to smugglers.

“I was in Turkey for more than a year trying to enter Europe from Greece and Bulgaria,” he said. “But I got sent back at least 20 times.” Amir’s experience echoes that of thousands of people being illegally pushed back to Turkey by EU border police.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/eu-migration-by-way-of-russia-is-moscow-or-brussels-to-blame/

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