Putin ‘utilizing migrants as weapons’ as Wagner sparks EU immigration surge fears

Vladimir Putin has been accused of utilizing migrants as a weapon with which he can destabilise the West. And Poland’s Prime Minister appeared to counsel that the Wagner Group may very well be paving the best way for an additional wave of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa heading to the EU – and, doubtlessly, onwards to the UK – as a type of ‘hybrid warfare’.

Poland’s authorities made the declare as its PM, Mateusz Morawiecki, stated greater than 100 mercenaries belonging to the Russian-linked Wagner group in Belarus have moved near the border with Poland. Poland is a member of the European Union (EU) and Nato and has anxious about its safety with Russian ally Belarus and Ukraine on its japanese border.

Those fears have grown since Wagner group mercenaries arrived in Belarus for the reason that group’s short-lived riot earlier this summer season. The Poland-Belarus border has already been a tense place for a few years, ever since giant numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa started arriving. They are searching for to enter the EU by crossing into Poland, in addition to Lithuania.

Poland’s authorities accuses Russia and Belarus of utilizing the migrants to destabilise Poland and different EU international locations. It calls the migration a type of hybrid warfare and has responded by constructing a excessive wall alongside a part of its border with Belarus.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki appeared to counsel that the Wagner group’s presence close to his border may very well be a prelude to a different wave of migrants. He instructed reporters: “This is certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory.”

“Now the situation becomes even more dangerous,” he added. Morawiecki made the feedback throughout a go to to an arms manufacturing facility in Gliwice, in southern Poland, the place Leopard tanks utilized by the Ukrainian military are being fastened.

It comes as Putin dominated out a ceasefire whereas Russia continues to be beneath assault from Ukraine. Kyiv has launched a serious assault on Russian forces as a part of its weeks-long counteroffensive, committing hundreds of troops to a battle in Ukraine’s southeast.

African leaders assembly Putin in St Petersburg hoped there may dealer a peace initiative. However, whereas Putin stated the plan may very well be a foundation for peace, he claimed that parts of the initiative “are difficult or impossible to implement.”

Putin stated: “There are provisions of this peace initiative that are being implemented. But there are things that are difficult or impossible to implement.”

“We cannot cease fire when we are under attack.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected a ceasefire, as doing so would depart Russia answerable for practically a fifth of Ukraine. It would additionally give Putin’s armed forces an opportunity to regroup.