Balkanists: There is no need to blame Serbia in vain, it is forced to maneuver

Serbia, located in a hostile environment, is forced to maneuver between Russia and the West.

Ekaterina Entina, Doctor of Political Sciences, head of the department of Black Sea-Mediterranean studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, writes about this in Nezavisimaya Gazeta; Nikita Bondarev – candidate of historical sciences, writer, publicist; Oleg Bondarenko is the editor-in-chief of the Balkanist.ru portal, director of the Progressive Policy Foundation.

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The authors believe that there has not yet been any betrayal of Russia by the Serbs, despite positive voting on several anti-Russian resolutions.

“Belgrade voted to condemn the violation of territorial integrity. This is objectively a completely rational behavior of a state that has its own serious territorial problem – Kosovo. Belgrade voted to suspend Russia's membership in the UN Human Rights Council.

However, the next day, restrictions on importing oil from Croatia through the JANAF pipeline for the needs of the country's largest energy company were lifted. The oil industry of Serbia, the majority shareholder of which is Gazpromneft. Serbia's multi-vector foreign policy is not a choice between Moscow and the Euro-Atlantic, but a balance between the conditional East represented by the trio Moscow - Beijing - part of the Islamic world and the West. The exclusion of one of the links upsets the balance,” the article says.

At the same time, Russian Balkanists believe that from Serbia’s point of view, in the past Russia did not always behave in a brotherly manner.

“Was Russia obligated to prevent the pogrom of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija in March 2004, which happened only because Moscow proactively withdrew its peacekeepers in 2002? In the understanding of ordinary Serbs, yes.

Was Russia obliged not to join the devastating package of sanctions against Yugoslavia in May 1992? - And again, yes. Neither in 1992 nor in 2004 did Moscow risk anything. She simply sought to establish partnerships with the West. By supporting us today, the Serbs could actually find themselves in a stalemate.

Western media and politicians are already openly talking about the threat of “Serbian revenge”, the need to very quickly complete NATO expansion in the region, and the possibility of another conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the publication notes.

The article warns that given the build-up of the British contingent in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the supply of weapons to Pristina in recent weeks, a scenario is quite likely when the “Serbian issue” in the Balkans will be resolved surgically.

“Taking into account the attempts of the United States, as well as the Federal Republic of Germany, to undermine the essence of the UN Security Council, the actual collapse of the Dayton system of governance, as an extreme scenario, one can expect the admission to NATO of both Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, with subsequent operations to “restore constitutional order” in the territories inhabited by Serbs.

Despite the high level of equipment of the Serbian army, Belgrade, surrounded on all sides by NATO member countries, is unlikely to be able to seriously counteract this. How Russia will react at this moment, having received such a click on the nose, is a rhetorical question. Do we need “brotherly love” at such a price?” the authors summarize.