Foreign (terrorist) fighters and their families in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, (northwestern) Russia and their impact on Estonia

ENForeign terrorist fighters (the FTFs) or jihadist terrorists and their wives and children returning to their countries of origin after the fall of the ISIS caliphate in Syria has created a great pressure on the institutions of the EU member states. Revoking citizenship and leaving wives and children of FTFs in refugee camps leads to further radicalisation of these people, and they’re perishing in harsh conditions. Repatriation, however, puts returnees in a hazy status between national security threats and subjects of reintegration. Hence, interinstitutional, cross-sector and multi-agency cooperation is vital to deradicalise and reintegrate FTFs and their families, prosecute adults for committed offenses, and help children overcome the traumas they received during their time in ISIS. Finland allows all of its citizens, including FTFs and their family members of Finnish nationality, to return to Finland. A necessary interinstitutional and multi-agency network is created to ensure due prosecution, deradicalisation and reintegration as well as help on different levels to the FTFs and their families. Experiences of the European refugee crisis of 2015 are significantly drawn upon. Comparable developments are also taking place in Sweden. Due to the absence of such returnees in Estonia and Lithuania (and some FTFs being sentenced in Latvia), these countries adhere to UN resolutions regarding FTFs and cooperate with other EU member states in discussing measures of treatment of such returnees. The recommendation would be to develop a plan of interinstitutional cooperation on returnees, since, if not FTFs and their families, other returnees or refugees from war or conflict zones may potentially come to the Baltic States in the future.According to the research by Sokiryanskaya (2020), wives, widows, and children of the fighters in wars between Russia and North Caucasus as well as FTFs themselves, are largely left to cope with their problems alone. No psychological, social or material help is provided, while oppression by the law enforcement bodies of these women and children is overwhelming. As a result, such children are vulnerable to radicalisation and are already having problems with the police. The recommendation is, therefore, not to leave the issue of dealing with FTF returnees and their families exclusively to law enforcement authorities. Another conflict zone to and from which foreign fighters (the FFs) travel is Ukraine. Many FFs with extreme right-wing beliefs went to fight in Ukraine. Notably, in the Donbas region, terrorist organisations like the Russian Imperial Movement are ready to host and train FFs from extremist organisations (e.g., Nordic Resistance Movement) to commit violent extremist acts in their countries of origin. In Estonia, punishment for fighting on behalf of terrorist organisations such as DNR and LNR in the Donbas region is extradition from the country. There is currently little information on returnee FFs from Ukraine in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, and especially Russia. FTFs and FFs can travel to Estonia or use its territory for transit in several ways. First, unlawfully, by using illegal migration routes and counterfeited documents. FTFs are effectively trained by Islamist organisations to infiltrate border checks. Notably, if a person is absolutely silent about their adherence to an extremist organisation and foreign fighting, it is complicated to detect it. Second, FTFs and FFs can enter Estonia legally after serving their sentences in the countries neighbouring Estonia or other EU member states.The risk remains that, after release, former FTFs and FFs can radicalise again and resume (contributing to) terrorist activities. Currently, most EU border control measures are directed at thorough checking of third countries’ nationals across multiple databases. However, FTFs or FFs already within the EU and using EU nationals’ documents to travel by ferries, buses, rental cars, leisure boats or by foot can freely move across the EU without much risk of being detected. To improve the situation, smart gates at EU external borders in harbours, airports and on terrestrial borders could also be used for checking EU citizens in order to establish that a document indeed belongs to the person who presents it. Checking biometric data of all passengers on the EU internal borders could allow to check a person across multiple databases, including the SIS and the ones run by Europol and Interpol, and effectively detect travellers with malicious purposes to Estonia and other EU member states.