New escape route: With Russian visas to the EU

The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is the site of a new escape route since Russia opened it to foreign airlines. SWR-Research shows that more people from the Middle East are trying to flee to the EU via Kaliningrad.

After Russia released Kaliningrad Airport to foreign airlines as part of an “Open Skies” program at the beginning of October, more and more people from the Middle East are making the route via the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea. From the Federal Foreign Office it says: “For several months the Federal Government and EU partners have been observing an increase in illegal migration movements on the route via Russia (…). Latvia, Lithuania and Poland report cases of people who have entered Belarus illegally with Russian visas in their passports.”

The Russian visa required to flee via Kaliningrad costs in northern Iraq, according to research by the SWR-Investigative format full screen about $2500 and appears to be easy to acquire. “Once your papers are there, it will take you ten days to get from Moscow to Germany,” one smuggler said in a videotaped conversation with one full screen-Decoy. However, the route via Kaliningrad is slightly more expensive than the flight via Belarus, which costs a total of $14,500. The reason: he had to pay the Russian authorities more bribes than the Belarusian ones, according to the smuggler. The Russian Foreign Ministry let one full screen– Inquiry about this unanswered.

Promised quick escape

full screen managed to make contact with refugees. Aras (not his real name) is a Syrian who is currently fleeing northern Iraq and is trying to find a way to the EU via Moscow and Belarus. At the time of the research, he had already been stuck in Minsk for several weeks. His smugglers had apparently promised him a quick and uncomplicated escape: “We actually don’t know anything. They’re not telling us the truth. They told us that we had to walk for two hours, but we walked for 20 hours,” said Aras.

Peyman, who fled Iran to Erbil in northern Iraq, also wants to continue to Europe. There, he hopes, he can have surgery on the gunshot wounds he says the police inflicted on him during the protests in Iran. Right now he can’t even get up. If he doesn’t manage to do it legally, he too will try to get to Europe illegally via Russia and apply for asylum there. Iranian rocket and drone attacks on the Kurdish region of Iraq are another reason for refugees like Peyman to keep fleeing to the EU.

Apparently, smugglers run real advertising campaigns for their services via social media, apparently even offering perks for acquisition. If you recruit more people for the escape routes, you can get a discount. This was reported by an informant from the smugglers’ milieu. Advertising videos of refugees who have reached their destination are also circulating in telegram groups. “We are observing that (…) this route via Russia and Belarus is being advertised on social media,” the Foreign Office said.

Travel agencies are often the first point of contact

For people who want to flee to the EU on a Russian visa, visiting a travel agency is often the first stop. The owner of a travel agency in the Kurdish-Iraqi Sulaymaniyah told VOLLBILD that sales of Russian visas had increased in recent months. During the warmer seasons they would have sold up to 1000 tickets per month. “Now in winter it’s ten to 20 travelers a month.” When asked whether the travel agency owner had anything to do with smugglers, he said no in an interview full screen. “The work we do, like applying for a visa or selling plane tickets, is legal.”

According to the travel agency owner, the route via Kaliningrad was created after the Belarusian government was taking increasingly tough action against refugees. The route via Kaliningrad is associated with such high risks as the route via Belarus. According to the International Organization for Migration, at least 21 people lost their lives fleeing the cold in the Belarusian forests on the border with Poland last winter. This route also continues to exist, Iraqi smugglers said in an interview full screen.

Paulina Bownik knows how dangerous trying to cross the border can be. The doctor has been caring for refugees who have crossed the Belarusian border to Poland since August 2021. Since the fence was built, she has mostly seen broken legs, but also head injuries. “The refugees who come from Belarus show signs of violence.” She assumes that Belarusian security forces beat these refugees. In winter, however, she also sees hypothermia and people who suffer from malnutrition.

Poland reacts with increased border protection

According to its own statements, Poland is reacting to the Russian “Open Skies program”. The Polish border guard divided full screen-Request with: “In response to this decision, the Polish government is preemptively securing the border with Kaliningrad Oblast. As part of the operation, the Polish armed forces are erecting a temporary barbed wire barrier.”

Russia is apparently pursuing a strategy of issuing low-threshold visas to migrants from the Middle East – this assumption seems reasonable to Kai-Olaf Lang, who is an Eastern Europe expert at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik after the Russian attack on Ukraine in February. The refugees should put pressure on the EU and NATO countries. “We are now also seeing in the context of migration that Kaliningrad can also be a thorn in NATO’s flesh in a different way,” said Lang. “I think the primary intention is to bring instability to these countries.”

The film on the subject is available at www.youtube.de/vollbild and in the ARD media library.