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Brussels Trying to Shift Blame for Refugee Crisis on Kremlin

© AP Photo / Armin Weigel/dpaGermany asylum seekers
Germany asylum seekers - Sputnik International
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The EU and NATO are blaming Russia for all ills in Europe to shift responsibility to Moscow for their own problems, a political analyst wrote.

Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel lay flowers at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - Sputnik International
'Europe Will Look for Reasons to Have Closer Ties With Russia'
Recently, The Guardian published an interview with Janis Sarts, Director of NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Latvia. He said that Russia was trying to "topple Angela Merkel by waging an information war designed to stir up anger in Germany over refugees."

According to Sarts, there is "evidence" that Russia is waging such a "war" but he did not provide it. The newspaper only wrote that he "has access to intelligence briefings."

Sarts’ accusation is that Russia is gaining political advantages from the rising popularity of rivals of Merkel’s immigration policy, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. He also claimed that Russia is directly funding the party.

"But if evidence of such money flows exists, why not simply confront the leadership of AfD with it?" Matthew Dal Santo, a Research Fellow at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, wrote in his article for The Nation.

When media reported that in 2014 France’s Front National had received a €9.4 loan from a Russian bank, Marine Le Pen’s rivals immediately used this fact in the political struggle.

"But Sarts’ 'revelation' wasn’t meant to inform the public; it was meant to scare it. It’s best seen as the latest act in a joint NATO-EU 'information war' against Russia," the article read.

The European media’s attack against Russia reached its heights when US General Philip Breedlove, NATO supreme commander in Europe, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve."

The fact that there was no evidence to his words did not prevent Breedlove from voicing his accusations, the author noted.

NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Philip Breedlove - Sputnik International
Russian MoD Slams Breedlove's Claims Russia to Blame for EU Migrant Crisis
"I can’t find any other reason for them […] other than to cause refugees to be on the move and make them someone else’s problem," Breedlove said.
Talk of "weaponizing" and "regime change" is part of the EU’s strategy to shift responsibility for the migrant crisis, which European leaders are unable to deal with, to Moscow, according to the article.

Sarts and Breedlove are merely repeating the words President of the European Council Donald Tusk said about six months ago.

At the same time, Tusk, like many other European politicians, is silent on the deeper reasons behind the crisis, including the West’s failed policy of nation building in the Middle East.

"When Russia’s Syria air campaign began on September 30, migrant arrivals had long since overwhelmed frontline states like Greece. Indeed, Russia’s military support for government forces in Syria may turn out in the long run to have played a crucial role in stemming refugee flows to Europe," Dal Santo wrote.

Even before the Syrian crisis, Europe blamed the Kremlin for its own failures, including the debt crises in Greece and Cyprus. 

"Austerity policies imposed by Greece’s EU partners had created depression-like conditions unseen since the 1930s. Yet blame for Athens’ opening to Moscow somehow shifted instead to Moscow’s largely imagined blandishments," the analyst pointed out.

"Hostility towards both national governments and the supranational EU bureaucracy is rising in many European countries. But it does so independently of Russia, which has (once again) been made the scapegoat for Europe’s failings," he concluded.

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