Federal President
Steinmeier: Moscow is exploiting refugees
“Of course, this doesn’t make the domestic German debate about migration and refugee admission any easier”: Frank-Walter Steinmeier Photo
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
Federal President Steinmeier and his Finnish counterpart Niinistö accuse Russia of deliberately using migration as a weapon to destabilize states in the West.
“We know that Russia’s border authorities near the border are helping these arrivals,” said Niinistö in Bonn when asked whether Russia was deliberately using migration as a weapon. Citizens from third countries come to Finland from Russia, the route seems to be that they are flown to Moscow and most likely receive help there for a fee.
“A very deep problem”
There are always undocumented migrants, said the Finnish president. As with a previous refugee movement, many migrants could once again make their way to Germany via Finland. It’s a very deep problem, he said. On the one hand it is about the security of the nation, on the other hand there are human rights. Finland had recently registered a growing number of migrants at the Russian border.
Steinmeier said that it was certainly striking that, in addition to the usual routes on which refugees come to Central Europe via the Western Balkans, there have recently been more frequent border crossings, particularly from Russia via Belarus and Poland to Germany. “Of course, this doesn’t make the domestic German debate about migration and refugee admission any easier,” he said. “I assume that people in Russia and elsewhere know very well how difficult these debates are and how they trigger domestic turbulence and thus political difficulties in countries like Finland and Germany. That’s why I suspect that it doesn’t happen entirely unintentionally.”