REFUGEES FROM UKRAINE. IS THERE A CASE FOR STRATEGIC ENGINEERED DISPLACEMENT?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for analyzing the current refugee flow from Ukraine in a manner that goes beyond statistics or humanitarian law towards intentionality and strategic games. The author will use Kelly M. Greenhill’s model of strategic engineered migration to investigate the case of refugees from Ukraine in order to assess the potential intention of Russia to use large masses of displaced people, caused by the illegal and unprovoked war, to achieve some hidden goals apart from the stated ones. The paper is built, first of all, on analyzing the theoretical framework focused on the types of strategic engineered migration, the evolution of the refugee flow, the humanitarian crisis and the implications for transit and destination countries. Also, there will be comparisons with the Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war and the case of the crisis caused by Belarus on its borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as illustrative for the use of refugees and migrants by a state actor in order to achieve specific political goals. In the last section, the author will investigate the opportunity to translate the case of war refugees into the model initially dedicated to the broader issue of migration, and, finally, will use it to the present case of refugees from Ukraine.