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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has claimed that networks linked to Russia and Israel spread disinformation that helped drive last month’s mass migrant crossing into Ceuta.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: Last month, over a two-day period, more than 72,000 people crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast. It is one of only two land borders the EU shares with Africa, and the scale of it rattled governments across Europe. The death toll is still unclear, with Spain’s EFE agency reporting at least 70 and Ceuta’s local authorities at least 100. The Spanish government says most people were sent back within hours, putting the number who voluntarily returned to Morocco at 48,000. Estimates of how many stayed range from 3,500, the government’s own figure, to 7,000, including unaccompanied minors.

What’s going on now: Speaking to Cadena SER radio on Monday, Sánchez put the blame on two governments he has publicly clashed with over Gaza and Ukraine. “After July 30 and 31, there was a spread of rumours and disinformation, from social networks linked both to Russia and to Israel, and to an ultra-right international that always uses migration not only to attack Spain, but also to attack Europe and divide it,” he said.

He cited research by the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic service, as showing the links, though he never laid out what that research actually found. Spain has stood behind Ukraine since the 2022 invasion, and Sánchez has gone further than most European leaders in condemning what Israel is doing in Gaza, calling it genocide.

The specific false claim circulating at the time, according to Sánchez, was that anyone who reached Ceuta by swimming could not be deported to Morocco. He said human trafficking groups were among those pushing it, and Spanish authorities have traced the claim to videos on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms. Spain’s Supreme Court has ruled that migrants intercepted at sea trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla cannot be returned, which is narrower than what was spreading online.

Both governments rejected the accusation. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Sánchez was “lying shamelessly,” adding that no amount of smearing Israel would cover for what he called Sánchez’s failure to run his own country. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was briefer. “No. Nothing to do with it,” he said. The EEAS itself has not answered questions from reporters about the research Sánchez pointed to.

This all comes after 22 of the EU’s 27 member states signed a joint letter on Aug. 1 calling for harder external borders and naming mass legalization of undocumented migrants as something that could pull more people in (a clear reference to the Spanish amnesty program that drew more than 1.1 million applications this year).