The Estonian government is accusing Russia of orchestrating "a hybrid attack operation" to bring migrants to its border, with the alleged goal of undermining security and unsettling the Baltic state's population. Estonia’s neighbor Finland has made similar allegations.
On Wednesday (November 22), Estonia's interior minister accused Russia of being involved in "a hybrid attack operation" to bring migrants to Estonia's border.
"There are many signs that Russian border officials and possibly other agencies are involved," said the minister, Lauri Laanemets, claiming that Russian authorities brought the 30 migrants to the border crossing in Narva, Estonia's second-largest city.
Laanemets said around 30 mostly Somali and Syrian migrants have attempted to enter Estonia from Russia through the Narva crossing point since last Thursday. None have asked for asylum and all were turned back, he said.
"In case the situation escalates, we are prepared to close our border crossing points, similarly to Finland," Veiko Kommusaar, Head of Border Guard Division of the Estonian police, told InfoMigrants.
Another 150 persons were denied entry to Estonia last week. "These people are usually traveling on their own and we have not noticed any organizing from Russian officials regarding their travel, as we have with the 30 people in the past week," Kommusaar said.
Minister Laanemets called the irregular crossing attempts at the EU external eastern border a "hybrid attack operation" with the aim to undermine security and unsettle the Baltic state's population.
Read more: EU's eastern border sees massive rise in people smuggling
Rise in irregular migration to Finland
The reported rejection of the 30 migrants at the Estonian-Russian border comes amid rising irregular migrant numbers on Finland's border with Russia, prompting EU border agency Frontex to announce that 50 officers will be deployed to Finland beginning on November 29.
The government in Helsinki, located just 85 kilometers north of Estonia’s capital Tallinn, accuses Moscow of sending more than 700 people from Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries to the border region in the last two weeks, which Russia has denied. That number compares to just a few dozen migrant arrivals in the preceding months.
On Monday, the Russian government said Russian border guards were carrying out their duties in line with the rules.
Stretching across 1,340 kilometers, the Finnish-Russian border is around three times longer than Estonia's border with its neighbor to the East.
Despite both being external borders for the EU and NATO following Finland's inclusion in the military alliance in April, the Finnish-Russian border runs mostly through taiga forests and does not follow any rivers; the Estonian-Finnish border, on the other hand, runs along the Narva River, the Lake Peipsi and then through difficult terrain and forested areas in the Southeast.
Did Russia use a 'hybrid war technique'?
According to Interior Minister Laanemets, migrants were appearing at the Narva border crossing on Monday (November 20) "in an orchestrated manner and in groups of 7-11 people". He also said that Russian border guards were filming with a pre-prepared recorder as migrants were turned back by the Estonians.
The video then appeared in Russian media within hours, Reuters reported citing a statement by the minister.
"The video recorded with this camera is now circulating in Russian media and social media with the aim of demonizing us as an unfriendly and closed country in the eyes of Russians," Laanemets said in a Facebook post.
"It is a simple hybrid war technique and information operation, with which the Russian border guard consciously tries to provoke incidents at our border crossing, film them and then use the recordings for their own propaganda purposes."
Russian officials were not immediately available to comment.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told reporters showing up at the border was hardly an accident. "In Russia, there's a border zone up to 10 kilometers that you cannot enter without the permission of the FSB."
Similarities with 'Belarus route'
Interior Minister Laanemets furthermore said the situation at the Estonian-Russian border is "similar" to that in Latvia and Lithuania at their borders with Belarus.
Since May 2021, thousands of migrants have been attempting to reach Poland, Lithuania and Latvia via Belarus, leading to a humanitarian crisis for those stranded along the EU external border. Some migrants were exposed to freezing weather conditions for weeks.
Grupa Granica, an NGO network monitoring the situation of migrants at the Polish-Belarusian border, says that at least 37 migrants have died in the border region since August 2021.
The three EU countries have accused Belarus of orchestrating the arrival of thousands of Middle Eastern and African migrants at their borders since 2021. Belarus has denied the allegation.
with AP, Reuters