Western regime change wars in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Libya transformed entire regions into terrorist havens and led to “migration waves” such as the one currently engulfing Spain’s exclave of Ceuta, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko told RT on Friday.

An estimated 50,000 migrants, mostly young men, swam from Morocco and crossed into Ceuta on Thursday and Friday in an unprecedented influx that triggered a humanitarian crisis in the city. Around 48,000 had voluntarily returned by Friday evening, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.

“The root cause of those migration waves lies in the policies of the West itself, which took aggressive action against Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Iran,” Grushko said, adding that this left entire regions in the Middle East and North Africa “stripped of statehood and transformed into safe havens for terrorists and extremists.”

The consequences of these Western policies are now being seen in “these waves of migration,” he said.

This is a collapse of the immigration policy that the EU has pursued for many years.

Grushko called the situation a failure not only of the EU’s “regulation – or lack thereof – of immigration,” but also of the bloc’s worldwide posture and policies it pursues regarding “countries that it considers its partners.”

Problems like immigration were “swept under the rug” while the bloc focused on militarizing and preparing for a war with Russia, he said.

“Reality is simply smashing through the ideological and political doors and walls they have erected, revealing to the European Union where its true problems lie,” Grushko said.

Watch the RT interview below: