RUSSIA is pushing migrants to the UK to overwhelm border defences and sow division, security sources warn.

Vladimir Putin’s tactics include providing fake documents, transport and even military escorts to smuggling gangs.

More than 18,000 have arrived in dinghies so far this year ­— and opposition MPs said the crossings should now be declared a “national security crisis”.

Senior security sources warned The Sun that foreign powers are backing or exploiting smuggling gangs in a bid to destabilise Britain.

This week, Nato recognised illegal migration as a key threat to national security — by ruling that border protection can count towards every member’s defence spending targets for the first time.

Just 299 migrants crossed the Channel in 2018. The highest year for arrivals was 2022 at 45,774.

Thousands of asylum seekers are being housed in hotels, increasing tensions in towns and cities.

Some have since been charged with national security offences, as well as crimes such as rape.

A top security source told The Sun: “Hostile states and malign actors are using illegal migration to test borders, cause disruption and destabilise countries like Britain.

“That’s exactly why Nato is now treating border protection as a core part of collective defence — because the lines between traditional military threats and national security are more blurred than ever.”

Opposition MPs said our broken borders are being tested by hostile states while ministers sit on their hands.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “This is a national security crisis. A public safety crisis and border security crisis.

“The news that hostile states are weaponising illegal migration shows that the Government has been ­negligent in failing to tackle the boat crisis.

“The way to stop it is to immediately remove illegal immigrants to a location outside Europe.

“But Labour scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it even started and now record numbers are coming in.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage added: “I first warned this would happen in my European Parliament speeches over ten years ago.

“The crossings are a national security emergency.”

Britain spends billions on border forces, coastal patrols and surveillance in the Channel.

These can all now be logged as part of our Nato commitment.

Senior officials say the move reflects how lines between military threats and criminal activity are being blurred by hostile regimes.

Home Office insiders insist the UK is not blind to the growing risk from foreign interference in the Channel crisis.

Countries such as Russia and Iran have long used underhand tactics to mess with the West — from cyber attacks and disinformation to stirring up migration.

Security sources say Russia and its puppet-state Belarus have been accused of orchestrating migrant surges on Europe’s eastern borders by providing fake documents, transport, and military escorts to the gangs.

And only last month, three Iranian men charged with spying offences, including plotting violence on UK soil, were found to have reached Britain by “irregular means” — including small boats and a lorry — before claiming asylum.

In March Polish PM Donald Tusk suspended asylum rights for those arriving from Belarus — warning the crisis is part of a deliberate hybrid warfare strategy backed by hostile states.

And Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto has accused the Kremlin-linked Wagner group of helping drive immigration from North Africa to Europe, calling it a “clear strategy of hybrid warfare”.

Yesterday PM Sir Keir Starmer was at the Nato summit in The Hague in the Netherlands, where member states’ leaders confirmed plans for all allies to spend five per cent of GDP on defence and security by 2035.

The pledge covers 3.5 per cent for hard defence, like troops and weapons, and 1.5 per cent on wider security, which includes infrastructure, energy security and border protection.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said: “National security is the first duty of any government — and that means securing our borders.

“We are improving our ability to monitor and anticipate illegal migration flows at both national and international levels, including investing in new state-of-the-art surveillance technology.

“Our Border Security Command is drawing together security operations around our border.

“This means working in close co-operation with Europol, Frontex and individual EU member states to combat organised immigration crime.

“New counter terrorism-style powers will tackle organised immigration crime groups, and existing capabilities carry out identity and criminal record checks on those applying for a visa, clandestine entries and those who arrive by small boat, so that potential threats are immediately addressed.”

The Sun understands the Home Secretary has also ordered officials to review border security capabilities to ensure they are robust enough to deal with state threats, as well as terrorism-related risks.

And after Sir Keir Starmer’s meeting with Mr Tusk in January, the UK is stepping up co-operation with Warsaw to tackle the weaponisation of migration.

THREE ASYLUM SEEKERS CONVICTED OF CRIMES IN UK

Flasher

AYSLUM seeker Snur Hamakarim exposed himself to two young girls in an underpass.

The sisters, aged 12 and 15, witnessed the 40-year-old drop his jeans as they walked home from school in Stevenage, Herts, in January.

The Iraqi-born migrant had been in the UK for a matter of months.

He was later seen on CCTV leaving the underpass “with his trousers round his ankles”.

Prosecutor Micha O’Neill told the town’s magistrates’ court the girls “saw the defendant pulling his jeans down and exposing his penis”.

Hamakarim was convicted of indecent exposure, fined £50 and given a community order with 200 hours’ unpaid work.

Trespasser

SYRIAN Mieser Oglo climbed into a security area near the Palace of Westminster so he could get a better view of the New Year fireworks on the Thames.

The 18-year-old asylum seeker, below, scaled a 4ft-high gate on Canon Row, but claimed he had not realised what he was doing was illegal because the “No Climbing” sign was in English and he could not read it.

Oglo, who arrived in the UK last year and lives in asylum housing at the former RAF Weathersfield, appeared at City of London magistrates’ court on Monday, aided by an Arabic interpreter.

He told the court: “Back home, it is normal to climb over fences.”

He was convicted of trespass and fined £100.

Arsonist

MIGRANT Zaidan Hossan Taha did not like the conditions of the home he was placed in — so set it alight.

The 24-year-old, from Kurdish Iraq, was moved into a Leeds bedsit but was unhappy his food was being stolen.

In April he was arrested after threatening to start a blaze there but was released.

A month later, he set fire to a blanket in the kitchen and threw it on a sofa before leaving the property. It failed to take hold, but caused smoke damage.

Taha was arrested and later spat in an officer’s face.

He admitted arson and assault and told Leeds crown court he came to the UK “for a better life”.

He was jailed for 26 months and told he would probably be deported after prison.