page_title: Russia–European Union relations
section_title: Use of migration issues
hierarchical_section_title: Russia–European Union relations / Allegations of Russian intimidation and destabilisation of EU states / Use of migration issues
caption_attribution_description: English: Vladimir Putin and Ursula von der Leyen at the International conference on Libya, 19 January 2020.
context_page_description: Russian–European Union relations are the international relations between the European Union and its largest bordering state, Russia, to the east. The relations of individual member states of the European Union and Russia vary, though a 1990s common foreign policy outline towards Russia was the first such EU foreign policy agreed. Furthermore, four European Union-Russia Common Spaces are agreed as a framework for establishing better relations. The latest EU-Russia strategic partnership was signed in 2011, but it was later challenged by the European Parliament in 2015 following the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass.
  Russia borders five EU member states: Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
context_section_description: In January 2016, several Finnish authorities suspected that Russians were enabling migrants to enter Finland, and Yle, the national public-broadcasting company, reported that a Russian border guard had admitted the Federal Security Service's involvement. In March, NATO General Philip Breedlove stated, "Together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve". A Russian state-run channel, supported by Sergey Lavrov, broadcast a false story that a 13-year-old German-Russian girl who had briefly disappeared had been raped by migrants in Berlin and that German officials were covering it up. Germany's foreign minister suggested that Russia was using the case "for political propaganda, and to inflame and influence what is already a difficult debate about migration within Germany."
  In Bulgaria a number of Russian citizens (most notably Igor Zorin and Yevgeniy Shchegolikhin) are involved in cooperation with far-right and anti-immigrant movements, for example organization of paramilitary trainings for "voluntary border patrols".
caption: President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and President Putin at the International conference on Libya, 19 January 2020
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