There’s a lot of money in human trafficking when it comes to organized crime. There’s a lot of money in organized crime when there’s political instability. And since Russia is a state that has been overtaken by an organized crime syndicate formerly known as the KGB, it only makes sense that Moscow is involved in originating flows of desperate humanity into stable democratic countries.
Thus, we have a new spate of reporting on Russia’s involvement in refugees upsetting political balances throughout European Union constituent countries. Here, as reports the UK Telegraph:
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.
This is but the latest chapter in an ongoing saga in which Russia and its international criminal underlings assist in overthrowing weak developing country governments and offering brutal repression to hold the new governments in power. The repression drives residents to flee wherever possible. And the criminal syndicates take a handsome cut for arranging the migrants’ passage.
The broader picture that emerges when you pull the camera back is hard to deny: The criminal cartel that passes for government in Russia benefits tremendously from its global operations. Its fingerprints are all over the fall of unstable governments. The Russian backed mercenary groups earn a handsome cut and legal immunity for their efforts to overthrow governments loosely favorable to the West. The new Russia-friendly governments can afford to pay once they have control—and they have to keep paying for ongoing mercenary protection. The mercenaries move freely about threatening civilians for protection money and access to escape routes into richer lands. As a price, official documents are held by the gangsters, and some proportion of the smuggled peoples are available as foot soldiers in the criminal networks among illegal migrants in their Western host countries.
Meantime, other international criminal syndicates operate under the Russian protective umbrella in order to extract natural resources, often with the use of child and other forced labor. Smuggling in scarce natural resources, human migrants, and illicit drugs flourishes.
It would seem paranoid to view all international news about governments falling to anti-Western juntas as possibly due to Russian activity. On the other hand, it would seem insufficiently skeptical and even downright naive not to see clear patterns of behavior based on past performance. For instance, the European border crisis staged by Russia’s client dictatorship in Belarus in 2021 was undeniably driven by those countries. The Wikipedia page about the events summarizes detailed reporting from a wide range of contemporary sources.
The Russians and their ever-expanding clutch of friendly regimes are not going to give up any tools of political pressure on Western governments—not just in response to a timid request. After all, we seem to lack the clear will for defending ourselves.
PSA: Double check the location of your polling place. Things change. Memories are not always.....well, maybe I won't go there.
Remind friends and family to do the same.
Why? Because it is really annoying to find out you in are in the wrong place after standing in line and it wastes time. In the worst cases, it leads to voters blaming their inconvenience on people who are not at fault.
Thank you.
PS: research says it may be rheumatoid arthritis, Rick has that, I didn't know it was an autoimmune disease