Italy | Already more than 20,000 migrants arrived in Italy at the beginning of the year – Minister blames the Wagner salary army

Italian Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto accuses the Russian mercenary Wagner of driving migrants towards Europe.

According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, around 22,000 migrants have arrived in the country at the beginning of the year. In the years 2021 and 2020, about 6,000 migrants arrived in the corresponding period.

“The exponential growth of the migration phenomenon from African coastal states is to a significant extent Wagner’s hybrid warfare. Wagner’s strategy is to use its significant weight in some African countries,” says Crosetto.

According to Crosetto, Wagner is trying to influence Italy’s “geostrategic choices”, i.e. supporting Ukraine.

“The EU, NATO and the Western countries have realized that cyber attacks are part of the global conflict that was opened by the war in Ukraine. They should also understand that the southern European front is more dangerous every day.”

Crosetto did not provide evidence or reveal in more detail how Wagner would work to increase the number of migrants.

Wagner is really making an impact in several African countries, especially the Central African Republic and Mali. Russia is known to have tried to break the political unity of Europe with hybrid operations related to immigration.

For example, a well-known historian and expert on Ukraine Timothy Snyder has drawn attention to the fact that the migration crisis in Europe was accelerated in the fall of 2015 by the fact that Russia then joined the Syrian war. The arrival of more than a million asylum seekers in Europe broke the political unity of the EU at the same time as Russia was waging war in eastern Ukraine.

Minister of Defense Crosetto represents the far-right Italian Brothers party, which leads the Italian government, whose top theme has been stopping immigration from Africa.

However, immigration has continued much more vigorously than in recent years since the prime minister of the Italian brothers Giorgia Meloni started in September.

Migrants arrive in Italy mostly on rickety boats across the Mediterranean, and accidents leading to the death of dozens of people are common. At the end of February, more than 70 people died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy.

Read more: Almost 60 migrants died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy, 12 of the victims are children

On Sunday evening, it was reported that at least 30 migrants who left Libya were missing at sea.

Italian the long-term goal has been to distribute the burden caused by migrant traffic more evenly in the EU, which the more northern EU countries have reacted to with skepticism.

Crosetto’s comments were echoed by Italy’s foreign minister on Monday Antonio Tajaniwho, during his state visit to Israel, told Italy that it was worried “because a lot of immigrants are arriving from the areas controlled by Wagner”.