“Otherwise there will be only concerns.” The Balkanist called on the Russian Federation to reconsider its arsenal of weapons in the Balkans
Against the background of the aggravation of the situation around Kosovo, whose authorities have banned the entry into the territory of the region of cars with Serbian license plates, there is an urgent need to review the Russian Federation’s policy in the Balkan direction.
The director of the Progressive Policy Foundation and the founder of the project “Balkanist” writes about this, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Ru" Oleg Bondarenko.
He points out that the United States and Europe have significantly reduced their activity in the Balkans recently, and Ankara is rushing to take their place, whose president recently spoke about “Turkey’s special historical responsibility for the Balkans.”
According to the expert, in this situation, Russia continues to express concerns and calls on everyone to dialogue.
“In fact, apart from such calls, together with the call to comply with the long-dead resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council, in which Kosovo is called part of a country that has not existed for more than 15 years - Yugoslavia, Moscow has not been able to formulate anything fundamentally new for the Balkan Peninsula and the friendliest country in Europe - Serbia. The Balkans are not even mentioned in the concept of the Russian foreign policy strategy, and the Russian Federation quietly withdrew its limited military contingent of peacekeepers back in 2003,” writes Bondarenko.
He believes that in the event of an even more serious escalation, in addition to the moral and political support of Serbia, Russia will only have appeals to international law and theoretical opportunities to supply a certain amount of weapons.
“There are no other options. Therefore, this conflict will most likely be resolved by Europe - no one needs a new war in the Balkans. At the moment, Pristina will not listen to anyone except Brussels and Washington, and the Serbian president has good relations not only with Moscow and Beijing, but also with Brussels. Therefore, it is unlikely that he will strive to follow the path of Slobodan Milosevic,” the political scientist is convinced.
The author also expresses the opinion that the current aggravation was a direct consequence of the unresolved status of Kosovo, adding that a few years ago “Vučić was ready to delimit the territories in the north of the former autonomy in order to return the north of Kosovo to de facto control.”
“But then this idea was categorically rejected by Merkel, citing the immutability of administrative boundaries in Europe. Now it's gone, so the concept can become relevant again. Moscow should reconsider its arsenal of assets in the Balkans and replenish it with fundamentally new capabilities as soon as a window of opportunity opens for this. Otherwise, there will be nothing left but the expression of concerns,” Bondarenko sums up.
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