WARSAW The camera captures a snowy road. Three bicycles and a car can be seen in the picture.
A man’s voice commands in bad English:
“Tell the camera that you are in Finland.”
Another answers in even weaker English:
“Morocco in Finland”.
Among other things, this is how smugglers advertise their transport services on Tiktok and Instagram. For example, a trip from Tunisia via Moscow to the Finnish border with a student visa costs about five thousand euros.
Sometimes quiet, but it can be confusing
Professor at the University of Warsaw, specializing in immigration to Europe Maciej Duszczyk follow the activities of smugglers also on social media. According to him, criminal networks are controlled by Turks and Saudi Arabians, who have effectively networked around the world.
Guiding migrants is also a source of income for Belarus and Russia.
– Maybe not to the administration directly, but to airlines, hotels in Moscow and other cities, universities that benefit from student visas. Those who support the Russian government benefit, Duszczyk explains.
For example, at the time of the Finnish presidential election in January, congestion can be seen at the border. Sometimes there can be quieter periods, sometimes there can be several hundred visitors a day. In this way, Russia can try to influence the elections.
– Finland should be very prepared for further provocations. This is a hybrid war and Russia will not stop.
Between 20 and 100 hundred migrants cross the border with Belarus to Poland every day. 52 different nationalities have already been counted.
– We are also moving towards the same thing at the Finnish border. These few dozen newcomers are just the beginning, Duszczyk estimates.
He has been researching the arrival of asylum seekers and migrants to Europe for years and participated as an expert in immigration decisions.
“We will also come through the forests”
In Duszczyk’s opinion, Finland should be prepared for the fact that human traffickers may soon try to bring migrants to Finland also past the official border crossing points.
Smugglers develop their tactics quickly. In the end, they came up with ways to send people to places with harsh natural conditions on the Finnish border, Duszczyk believes.
– They are definitely trying to push people to the border where the border is not closely guarded.
It has already been seen in Poland that smugglers do not spare any means. The newcomers themselves are also highly motivated to get to Europe, if necessary perhaps through Finland’s difficult-to-pass border forests.
– For example, an Ivorian who has invested his entire fortune in travel tickets simply cannot return to his home country, Duszczyk says.
In the Polish forests, newcomers face very difficult situations and are ready to expose themselves to great danger.
– People who don’t know how to swim can try to swim across the river, because they practically have to. Some have drowned, says Duszczyk.
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In Poland, the border situation has been active since 2021, when Belarus directed thousands of undocumented migrants to the border. It was estimated to be caused by the autocratic leader of Belarus and a friend of Putin Alexander Lukashenko inflamed relations with the EU.
Duszczyk believes that part of the explanation was Russia’s preparations for an invasion of Ukraine. The immigrants are fighting a hybrid war, which is meant to destabilize the West. Ukraine is also Poland’s neighbor.
Poland immediately declared a state of emergency and banned all traffic in the border area. A steel fence of more than five meters was erected at the border, which, admittedly, has only succeeded in slowing down the crossing of the border.
Neighboring countries of Russia: come together
Duszczyk is convinced that the situation can only be resolved through European cooperation.
In his opinion, Russia’s border countries from north to south should gather and develop countermeasures in cooperation. Immigration to them is different from, for example, the Mediterranean.
– On the eastern borders of Poland and Finland, immigration is political. People coming across the Mediterranean are usually not used as political weapons.
According to Duszczyk, trips to Finland or Poland are roughly the same price. The starters choose the destination according to their own interests. Those who come to Poland usually want to move to the rest of Europe at the same time.
Finland, on the other hand, is in the back of the bag, and it is not easy to move from there. In Duszczyk’s opinion, the north is attracted by social security.
– You are a rich country. Many may think that they will first be there for a year or two and then move to another part of Europe.
The goal of migrants is usually to work. So they are not asylum seekers but economic refugees.
– Most of them already have relatives in Europe, and they want to be with their family in, for example, Germany, France or Britain. They also think that it will be easy for them to get a visa because of their family relationship.
Security guards guard, activists help
In Duszczyk’s opinion, it is clear that the dirty game of monopolists must be fought against and concessions must not be made. The fates of individual people are a more difficult question.
– If a person crosses the line and his condition is weak, then you have to help him and not push him back. If we violate human rights at the border, what is the next step, Duszczyk asks.
The state must protect human life within its borders. The task of the border guards is to protect the border, but those crossing the border can be helped by activists, says Duszczyk.
– They can save people and prevent deaths.