"Several dozen Chechens" are staying in Bosnia and Herzegovina close to the border with Croatia and are planning to seek asylum there after they arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina by abusing the country's visa-free regime with Russia, Croatia's state news platform Hina said on Tuesday, citing Svevlad Hoffman, "an advisor to the BiH Border Police Director."

“Hoffman warns that among them there could be fighters of Putin’s associate Ramzan Kadyrov,” Hina added.

Over the past few weeks, several hundred Russian nationals from Chechnya and Dagestan have been arriving in Sarajevo by plane, alleging that the purpose of their visit is tourism. Instead of staying in hotels in Sarajevo, for which they have vouchers, they head for the border with Croatia to seek asylum there.

“They are evidently abusing the hospitality of our country and using it as a springboard to enter the EU,” Hoffman told the Hrvatski Medijski Servis (“Croat Media Service”) website based in Mostar.

Some of the migrants from Chechnya are already in western Bosnia, where they have been trying to enter Croatia to seek asylum there. “Hoffman said that some of them are so-called Kadyrovites and that the motive for their entry to the EU is far from seeking asylum,” Hina reported what HMS said.

“This situation poses a potential security threat to both Bosnia and Herzegovina and the EU, notably in the light of the war in Ukraine,” Hoffman said, calling for abolishing the visa-free regime with Russia to “remove the security problems” and align Bosnia’s foreign policy with the EU’s.