Europol has deployed operational teams to all frontline European countries neighbouring Ukraine to bar terrorists from crossing borders to enter the union and to protect citizens and refugees against criminal elements.
Europol said in a statement that the teams had been deployed within the framework of the agency’s response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine with a view to protecting the European Union and Ukrainian refugees from criminal threats.
“Coming at the request of these countries, Europol now has operational teams in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Moldova, with an upcoming deployment planned to Hungary,” the agency said.
“These teams, comprising Europol specialists and guest officers, support the national authorities with secondary security checks and investigations at the European external borders to identify criminals and terrorists trying to enter the EU in the refugee flow and exploit the situation. These operational teams are also gathering information in the field, which is used to develop criminal threat assessments at the European level.”
It added that secondary security checks were an important tool to manage the large influx of refugees fleeing Ukraine. Europol has carried out such a service at the request of EU member states in the migration hotspots in the Mediterranean since 2016.
“This complements Europol’s active engagement with Ukrainian law enforcement through the Ukrainian liaison officer present at Europol’s headquarters in the Netherlands,” Europol said.
All this intelligence-gathering activity is allowing the agency to anticipate developments and coordinate operational activities with EU member states to respond to the activities of criminal groups seeking to take advantage of the war in Ukraine.
