Russia’s intelligence services are actively supporting the smuggling networks that drive illegal migration into Europe, Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Daniel Mitov told The Times in a recent interview. According to him, Moscow is using migration as a political weapon to destabilize both the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Mitov revealed that the Bulgarian authorities possess evidence linking Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service directly to criminal organizations involved in human trafficking. These groups, he said, have been exploiting weaknesses along the EU’s external borders, including Bulgaria’s frontier with Turkey. Russian operatives allegedly help smugglers identify these vulnerabilities and advise migrants on how to manipulate the EU and UK asylum systems to evade deportation.

The interior minister also warned that certain far-left humanitarian organizations were cooperating with traffickers under what he described as “ideological pretexts.” Some of these non-governmental groups, he said, had even attracted young British activists to their cause. “We are seeing British teenagers supporting neo-Marxist groups,” Mitov noted.

He emphasized that the manipulation of migration flows has become a key tactic for hostile regimes seeking to weaken European societies. “Illegal migration inflows are an instrument for hostile regimes to destabilize the European Union and the United Kingdom,” Mitov said. “Their goal is to strain welfare systems and, through the smuggling of radicalized individuals, create serious security challenges for all of us.”