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Revealed: how Putin plans to flood West with migrants
Russia is using private militias to control and “weaponise” immigration into Europe, The Telegraph can reveal.
Revealed: how Putin plans to flood West with migrants
Thu, February 29, 2024 at 4:30 PM EST
illustration of migrants
illustration of migrants
Russia is using private militias to control and “weaponise” immigration into Europe, The Telegraph can reveal.
The Kremlin has influence over a number of the main routes into the continent and border police are warning that, with the arrival of spring, Russia is likely to “intensify” its efforts to move migrants.
It has been widely feared that Vladimir Putin is using the tactic to destabilise Europe.
The Telegraph has now seen intelligence documents detailing plans for Russian agents to set up a “15,000-man strong border police force” comprising former militias in Libya to control the flow of migrants.
A security source said: “If you can control the migrant routes into Europe then you can effectively control elections, because you can restrict or flood a certain area with migrants in order to influence public opinion at a crucial time.”
It comes as migration is set to be a key issue in the general election.
A failure to control the number of migrants coming to the UK is already seen as a major weakness for Rishi Sunak, who is struggling to push through a scheme to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda to stop the flow of small boats across the Channel.
In the year to June 2023, 52,530 illegal migrants were recorded as entering the UK, up 17 per cent on the previous year. Most of these crossed the Channel in small boats.
Figures released on Thursday revealed that the number of people granted asylum in the UK hit a record high in 2023 as officials waved through thousands of applications in an attempt to clear a huge post-pandemic backlog.
A surge of migrants into Europe this winter prompted by Putin could lead to an increase in small boats crossing this summer, when people smugglers make use of the better weather to send people across the Channel, putting Mr Sunak under further pressure.
Frontex, the EU’s border police, says it has seen Russia using migration “as a lever in a larger game of influence and pressure”.
The agency is warning that an increasingly isolated Putin choosing to move migrants to Europe’s doorstep – both along Russia’s eastern borders and through proxies in the south, including in Africa – is a major threat to security for 2024.
It comes amid growing tensions between Russia and the West, with Putin using his annual state of the nation speech on Thursday to warn that he will use nuclear weapons if Nato countries send troops into Ukraine.
The president told the Kremlin that “strategic nuclear forces” were “in a state of full readiness for guaranteed use” and boots on the ground could lead to “the destruction of civilisation”.
Mercenaries including the Wagner group have been fuelling migration by increasing instability and violence in parts of Africa under their control and by physically moving migrants to the borders and supporting smugglers, experts say.
A Wagner mercenary in the Central African Republic
A Wagner mercenary in the Central African Republic. Russia has been using the group to physically move migrants around
Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, told The Telegraph: “The UK’s adversaries are weaponising the flow of people in Europe’s near abroad, as we witnessed on the border between Belarus and Poland and Lithuania in 2021, and exacerbating instability in the Maghreb and Sahel region through the use of proxies.”
The warning has been echoed by ministers across Europe.
Russia’s plans to set up a Libyan militia, as seen by The Telegraph, fell through when payments due to be made via the “the Russian-Libyan cultural institute” in Moscow were never made. No record of such a company exists.
However, thousands of Wagner mercenaries have been fighting in Libya’s civil war since at least 2019 for Russia ally General Khalifa Haftar, and the group has a stronghold in the region.
Antonio Tajani, Italy’s deputy prime minister, has said that Rome has intelligence that the mercenaries “are very active and in contact with trafficking gangs and militia interested in migrant smuggling”.
His government has blamed a surge in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean on Wagner, whom they accuse of waging “hybrid warfare”.
The largest increase in migrants last year was through that central Mediterranean route, according to Frontex, which noted that at 380,000, the number of irregular border crossings in 2023 was at its highest since 2016.
Women and children accounted for only 20 per cent of the total, the data show.
Frontex recorded more than 62,000 onward crossings toward the UK.
Migrant crossing in the Mediterranean
Increasing migrant crossings in the Mediterranean are a concern for many European leaders - Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP
Amid growing tensions over the conflict between Israel and Gaza, Russia has also been strengthening its ties with Tunisia, another major source of migrants into the central Mediterranean.
Russian mercenaries are already known to be active across Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan.
Dr Sergey Sukhankin, a senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation and an adviser at Gulf State Analytics in Washington, said that observers tended to focus on Russian paramilitaries’ role in propping up African regimes, and not on the impact on migration.
“If we take a look at their map, you will see that the Central African Republic holds a strategic place, which gives the Russian paramilitaries inroads to Sudan, which is another key player, and then on to the smugglers’ route through to Libya,” he said.
“The migration routes are inseparable from the localities and places where the Wagner Group and other Russian paramilitaries are present.
“The various waves of illegal migrants from Africa might increase, because Russia is planning to create a new military facility in the Central African Republic. I think the capacity is about 2,000 men so this will give Russia additional leverage in terms of navigating those migration flows from the Sub-Saharan Africa region on to Libya and then on to the European Union.”
In its latest risk report, Frontex warns: “Given the extent of hostility between Russia and the West and the reduced interdependence between them, the likelihood of the instrumentalisation of migrants by Russia and Belarus has increased.
“Importantly, the instrumentalisation of migrants may not only be limited to the eastern land borders as Russia’s allies and proxies to the south and south-east could be leveraged.”
EU law defines “instrumentalisation of migrants” as a situation where another country “instigates irregular migratory flows… by actively encouraging or facilitating the movement” of migrants to the borders in order to “destabilise” the EU or a member including putting at risk “its territorial integrity, the maintenance of law and order or the safeguard of its national security”.
The European Parliament is in the process of passing an “emergency migration and asylum management procedure” to deal with the “highly worrying phenomenon” of “the increasing role of state actors in artificially creating and facilitating irregular migration, using migratory flows as a tool for political purposes”.
It started taking action in 2021 after Belarusian leader and close Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko sent thousands of migrants from the Middle East into the EU by inviting people – mainly in Iraq – to fly to Minsk and then bussing them to the heavily forested border with Poland and telling them to walk across.
Frontex officers were deployed to Finland in November when the country was forced to close several of its border crossings with Russia after seeing a dramatic spike in the number of migrants without proper visas and documentation, mostly from the Middle East and Africa.
Frontex officer
Frontex officers were deployed to Finland after migrants crossed over from Russia - ALESSANDRO RAMPAZZO/AFP via Getty Images
Elina Valtonen, the Finnish foreign minister, said that it was “undoubtedly” Russia using migration as “hybrid warfare” and in some cases it was “actively helping” migrants to travel to the border.
A Frontex spokesman told The Telegraph: “These developments illustrate broader strategies that seem to be employed by state actors like Russia and Belarus, aimed at stress-testing the resilience of borders shared with EU and Schengen countries.
“This is not just a matter of border security but also of geopolitical tension, where migration is used as a lever in a larger game of influence and pressure. It is disturbing to see the desperation of people seeking to come to the EU used ruthlessly as pawns in a geopolitical game.
“While these incidents in Finland are currently at a relatively contained scale, they signal a potential risk that could intensify, particularly with the arrival of spring – a period traditionally associated with increased migratory movements.
“The situation could further escalate if there is active facilitation of crossings by the authorities in question.”
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F.B.I. Shed Informants Linked to Russian Influence Operations
After a secret review several years ago, the bureau cut off confidential sources thought to be connected to Russian disinformation.
F.B.I. Shed Informants Linked to Russian Influence Operations
After a secret review several years ago, the bureau cut off confidential sources thought to be connected to Russian disinformation.
May 20, 2024
Soldiers in dark clothes with Russian flags on their arms stand in formation in front of large military vehicles and the Kremlin during a military parade.
Russian soldiers during a military parade in Moscow this month. The F.B.I. tries to maintain a difficult balance in spy operations: The more access informants have to valuable intelligence, the higher the risk that they could be compromised.Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times
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The F.B.I. cut ties to at least a handful of informants and issued warnings about dozens of others after an internal review prompted by concerns that they were linked to Russian disinformation, current and former U.S. officials said.
The review was carried out in 2020 and 2021 by a small group within the bureau’s counterintelligence division, with the findings then passed along to field offices, which handle informants.
It led to the severing of sources — some of whom had offered information about Russia-aligned oligarchs, political leaders and other influential figures — at a moment when the bureau was asking agents to produce more information from and about those same networks. The review was conducted during and after the 2020 election, when concerns about Russian meddling were running high, and at a time when the United States was closely monitoring whether Russia would invade Ukraine.
The episode highlighted a tricky balance: The more access informants have to valuable intelligence, the higher the risk that they could knowingly or unknowingly be used to channel disinformation. This is particularly true with regard to post-Soviet countries, where shifting alliances among oligarchs, politicians and intelligence services have far-reaching consequences that can be difficult for Western governments to discern.
Even in an age of high-tech intelligence gathering and surveillance, human sources continue to play an important role in law enforcement and national security, giving agents the chance to gather insights and perspective that cannot always be gleaned from communications intercepts, for example.
The New York Times has independently confirmed, but is not disclosing, the identities of several of the F.B.I. informants who provided information about Russia and Ukraine and who were cut off around the time of the review by the bureau’s counterintelligence division, including one informant that predated the review.
Pictures of F.B.I. agents on the windows of the F.B.I. headquarters in Washington.
The F.B.I. had been aware of Russian disinformation efforts and eventually became concerned that the campaign extended to informants being used by the F.B.I.Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times
Johnathan C. Buma, an F.B.I. agent who oversaw at least four of the informants who were dropped, suggested in a written statement provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year that law enforcement should embrace the murkiness that comes with operating in the shadows.
“Typical disinformation operations are based on partial truths, and the only way to determine the veracity of the allegations is to conduct an independent investigation to attempt corroboration,” Mr. Buma wrote in explaining his opposition to the terminations.
His statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is led by Democrats, as well as a statement Mr. Buma submitted earlier to a special subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House, came after he filed a whistle-blower complaint accusing the F.B.I. of suppressing intelligence from his sources and retaliating against him.
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Russian Influence Operations: The F.B.I. cut ties to at least a handful of informants and issued warnings about dozens of others after an internal review prompted by concerns that they were linked to Russian disinformation.
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Taking Political Lies to Court: A small but growing cadre of lawyers is deploying defamation, the legal concept of false information, against a tide of political disinformation in the Trump era.
The F.B.I. is investigating Mr. Buma’s dealings with an informant he worked with after the bureau cut off those identified in the counterintelligence review, a person familiar with the matter said.
The F.B.I. had been aware of Russian disinformation efforts for years, and eventually became concerned that the campaign extended to its own informants.
In particular, the F.B.I. watched as informants across the bureau’s different divisions began peddling new information that was politically explosive. It included reports regarding President Biden’s family and former President Donald J. Trump, as well as other inflammatory topics, according to former and current U.S. officials and an ex-informant for the counterintelligence division.
The types of concerns that prompted the review spilled into public view in February, when prosecutors indicted a longtime informant on Russia and Ukraine matters, Alexander Smirnov, for lying to the F.B.I.
Prosecutors accused him of fabricating claims about bribes paid to the Bidens by a Ukrainian energy company whose board included the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Prosecutors said Mr. Smirnov had passed along information about Hunter Biden — though they did not provide specifics — from Russian intelligence.
Mr. Smirnov was flagged as part of the F.B.I. review but he was not shut down, because information he was providing was being used in other investigations, the former and current U.S. officials said.
Three people with masks and scarves covering their faces walking with arms linked outside of a courthouse.
Alexander Smirnov, center, left a courthouse in Las Vegas in February.Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal, via Associated Press
Around the time of the review, the F.B.I. circulated internal memos to agents hinting at competing imperatives. On the one hand, agents were instructed to gather more intelligence from informants about Russian efforts to meddle in U.S. politics, and to retaliate against the United States for its support of Ukraine.
On the other, they were urged to be on the lookout for disinformation, misinformation or influence operations from foreign governments that took aim at American politics, according to the memos, which were obtained by The Times.
The memos, each of which was labeled “collection priorities message,” listed the identification numbers and handling agents of informants who could be of assistance on such matters. The memos do not mention the terminations, or any concerns about specific informants.
A former official said that dozens of F.B.I. agents in field offices were warned to handle their informants, known as confidential human sources, with extra care because the Russians might have been aware of their contact with the United States. Under bureau policy, the decision to end relationships with informants rests with the F.B.I. field offices and not headquarters.
A U.S. official described this effort as an “awareness campaign” inside the F.B.I.
The bureau’s sources are often encouraged to maintain associations with criminal figures or foreign intelligence services. The idea is for them to report back on those associates; in the process, though, they can become conduits used by those associates to inject false information — intentionally or unknowingly — into the realms of U.S. law enforcement or intelligence.
Some terminations in early 2022 were classified as precautionary and not for cause, according to Mr. Buma’s statement and one of his former informants. That suggests there was no specific evidence that those informants had willfully tried to channel Russian disinformation into federal law enforcement, but rather that there was concern that they might have done so unwittingly, or merely been associated with people believed to be pushing disinformation, or politically motivated information.
Part 2:
Information provided by one of Mr. Buma’s terminated informants, an American businessman with deep connections overseas, was used by the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to Mr. Buma’s statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Other information from the businessman was used to revoke the U.S. visa of a Ukrainian-Russian oligarch and to support the decision to impose sanctions on a Ukrainian oligarch who had been a key backer of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. And it was used to identify two corrupt federal law enforcement agents.
Among the associations that appear to have raised red flags within the F.B.I. was the businessman’s recruitment of two Ukrainians who would themselves become F.B.I. informants. One of the Ukrainians was a former K.G.B. agent who had become a Ukrainian intelligence operative, who developed high-level Ukrainian government contacts through his leadership of a foundation dedicated to tracking kleptocracy, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. It identified the other as a researcher for the foundation who had a background in economics.
In January 2019, according to interviews and Mr. Buma’s statement, the two Ukrainians traveled to the Los Angeles area for meetings during which they provided information to representatives from the F.B.I. and other agencies about oligarchs, money laundering and Ukrainian and American political figures.
Among their claims was one that Hunter Biden had failed to disclose lobbying he did for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and had failed to pay taxes on income from the company. Mr. Biden was not charged with lobbying violations. He was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses. It is not clear whether information from the two Ukrainian informants played any role in the investigation.
Hunter Biden, wearing a suit, walking inside the Capitol surrounded by lawyers, security, and reporters.
Hunter Biden was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma.Kenny Holston/The New York Times
The F.B.I. first pressed to cut off the businessman after he and the two Ukrainians attended a conservative gala in May 2019. At the event, the Ukrainians presented a thumb drive containing allegations about Mr. Biden and other Democrats to an aide traveling with Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, according to internal F.B.I. reports and an article published in Business Insider.
Mr. Buma successfully resisted efforts to terminate the American businessman.
Mr. Buma argued that the informant was granting the F.B.I. a critical view into a murky world that was increasingly important to U.S. national security as Russia built up its efforts to influence American politics and exert control over Ukraine, according to interviews and the statement Mr. Buma provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Buma had been trained by the bureau to speak Russian. Part of his job was identifying and recruiting informants with access to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, politicians and their networks.
The American businessman became “one of the F.B.I.’s top C.H.S.s whose reporting had been extensively corroborated through predicated investigations, with numerous well-documented high-impact successes related to countering foreign influence and public corruption on both sides of the political spectrum,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate, referring to confidential human sources.
Yet, in the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bureau again expressed concerns about the businessman and other sources connected to him.
In a meeting in February 2022, an official with the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force told Mr. Buma that he was “not the only field agent whom they were asking to close their sources related to Russia/Ukraine matters just as the war erupted,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate. “When I questioned the wisdom of their request, the supervising analyst claimed their recommendation relied on highly classified information from the National Security Agency.”
The informants were closed out, as were others linked to the businessman, including, Mr. Buma recalled in his statement, “many other productive sources in that category who took years for me to develop.”
Two children playing in front of a destroyed apartment complex.
An apartment building destroyed by bombs in Kharkiv, Ukraine, last month. In the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the F.B.I.’s foreign influence task force renewed its effort to close out several sources.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Mr. Buma suggested in his statement that the closures were an effort to shut down investigations that might implicate Trump allies, including Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Buma had collected information from the businessman about Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to damage the Bidens by highlighting their work in Ukraine.
The F.B.I. declined to comment on Mr. Buma’s claims.
Mr. Buma privately discussed his allegations last summer with Republican staff members for the House subcommittee and with aides to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There is no evidence that either congressional committee is investigating his claims. A spokesman for the House subcommittee declined to comment, while representatives for the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mr. Whitehouse did not respond.
Months later, Mr. Buma’s home was searched for classified information by the F.B.I. Mr. Buma has been suspended from the bureau, but he has not been criminally charged.
Scott Horton, a lawyer for Mr. Buma, cast the investigation as “revenge” against his client for having suggested that the F.B.I.’s handling of confidential sources was affected by political bias against the Bidens and in favor of Mr. Trump’s allies.
Mr. Horton said he had met with Hunter Biden’s lawyers to discuss how Mr. Buma’s story might be of assistance. Another lawyer for Mr. Buma, Mark Geragos, is also representing Mr. Biden.
Information provided by one of Mr. Buma’s terminated informants, an American businessman with deep connections overseas, was used by the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to Mr. Buma’s statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Other information from the businessman was used to revoke the U.S. visa of a Ukrainian-Russian oligarch and to support the decision to impose sanctions on a Ukrainian oligarch who had been a key backer of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. And it was used to identify two corrupt federal law enforcement agents.
Among the associations that appear to have raised red flags within the F.B.I. was the businessman’s recruitment of two Ukrainians who would themselves become F.B.I. informants. One of the Ukrainians was a former K.G.B. agent who had become a Ukrainian intelligence operative, who developed high-level Ukrainian government contacts through his leadership of a foundation dedicated to tracking kleptocracy, according to Mr. Buma’s statement. It identified the other as a researcher for the foundation who had a background in economics.
In January 2019, according to interviews and Mr. Buma’s statement, the two Ukrainians traveled to the Los Angeles area for meetings during which they provided information to representatives from the F.B.I. and other agencies about oligarchs, money laundering and Ukrainian and American political figures.
Among their claims was one that Hunter Biden had failed to disclose lobbying he did for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and had failed to pay taxes on income from the company. Mr. Biden was not charged with lobbying violations. He was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses. It is not clear whether information from the two Ukrainian informants played any role in the investigation.
Hunter Biden, wearing a suit, walking inside the Capitol surrounded by lawyers, security, and reporters.
Hunter Biden was charged last year with failure to file tax returns covering millions of dollars in income from Burisma.Kenny Holston/The New York Times
The F.B.I. first pressed to cut off the businessman after he and the two Ukrainians attended a conservative gala in May 2019. At the event, the Ukrainians presented a thumb drive containing allegations about Mr. Biden and other Democrats to an aide traveling with Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, according to internal F.B.I. reports and an article published in Business Insider.
Mr. Buma successfully resisted efforts to terminate the American businessman.
Mr. Buma argued that the informant was granting the F.B.I. a critical view into a murky world that was increasingly important to U.S. national security as Russia built up its efforts to influence American politics and exert control over Ukraine, according to interviews and the statement Mr. Buma provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mr. Buma had been trained by the bureau to speak Russian. Part of his job was identifying and recruiting informants with access to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, politicians and their networks.
The American businessman became “one of the F.B.I.’s top C.H.S.s whose reporting had been extensively corroborated through predicated investigations, with numerous well-documented high-impact successes related to countering foreign influence and public corruption on both sides of the political spectrum,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate, referring to confidential human sources.
Yet, in the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bureau again expressed concerns about the businessman and other sources connected to him.
In a meeting in February 2022, an official with the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force told Mr. Buma that he was “not the only field agent whom they were asking to close their sources related to Russia/Ukraine matters just as the war erupted,” Mr. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate. “When I questioned the wisdom of their request, the supervising analyst claimed their recommendation relied on highly classified information from the National Security Agency.”
The informants were closed out, as were others linked to the businessman, including, Mr. Buma recalled in his statement, “many other productive sources in that category who took years for me to develop.”
Two children playing in front of a destroyed apartment complex.
An apartment building destroyed by bombs in Kharkiv, Ukraine, last month. In the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the F.B.I.’s foreign influence task force renewed its effort to close out several sources.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Mr. Buma suggested in his statement that the closures were an effort to shut down investigations that might implicate Trump allies, including Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Buma had collected information from the businessman about Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to damage the Bidens by highlighting their work in Ukraine.
The F.B.I. declined to comment on Mr. Buma’s claims.
Mr. Buma privately discussed his allegations last summer with Republican staff members for the House subcommittee and with aides to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There is no evidence that either congressional committee is investigating his claims. A spokesman for the House subcommittee declined to comment, while representatives for the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mr. Whitehouse did not respond.
Months later, Mr. Buma’s home was searched for classified information by the F.B.I. Mr. Buma has been suspended from the bureau, but he has not been criminally charged.
Scott Horton, a lawyer for Mr. Buma, cast the investigation as “revenge” against his client for having suggested that the F.B.I.’s handling of confidential sources was affected by political bias against the Bidens and in favor of Mr. Trump’s allies.
Mr. Horton said he had met with Hunter Biden’s lawyers to discuss how Mr. Buma’s story might be of assistance. Another lawyer for Mr. Buma, Mark Geragos, is also representing Mr. Biden.