Putin's friend who hates Muslims. Will Serbia ignite another war in the heart of Europe?

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (right) receives Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Anatolia)

Translation Introduction

Tensions are returning between Serbia and Kosovo, which have maintained a fragile peace since the war between them at the end of the nineties, which ended with Kosovo's independence with NATO support. This time, the developments are driven by the ambitions of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who seeks to boost his stay in power by pushing Serbian nationalism and caressing the dreams of radical Serbs to retake Kosovo, with the backing of Russia, which sees in the Balkans an opportunity to ignite a major new conflict in Europe that proves the West's alliance fragility and distracts from the war in Ukraine. David Schid, former acting director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, and Ivana Stradner, a researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explain the details of this conflict and its implications for the stability of Europe and the standing of NATO.

Translation text

At the end of September, Serbia deployed advanced weaponry on its border with Kosovo in one of the largest military build-ups since the Kosovo war ended nearly a quarter of a century ago. A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council called the move "an unprecedented show of advanced Serbian artillery, tanks and infantry units." Although these military build-ups are widely ignored, they are part of worrying developments in the Balkans.

The immediate pretext for this Serb build-up is the past months of instability between Kosovo and Serbia, which have maintained a fragile peace since NATO's aerial bombing campaign helped wrest Kosovo de facto independence from Belgrade in the 1998-1999 war. In May, Serbia put its forces on standby following skirmishes between Serbs living in Kosovo and the Kosovo police. In September, just before the recent border build-up, 30 Serb gunmen attacked a Kosovo police patrol with heavy weapons, killing four people.

There are several indications that these incidents represent more than the normal tensions of past years, and they also illustrate the growing threat posed to the region by Russia, Serbia's partner. In 2022, for example, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said Kosovo and Serbia were "on the brink of armed conflict." Moscow, which does not recognize Kosovo's independence, has fuelled the conflict by using information warfare tactics to stoke mistrust between Kosovo and Serbia and spread hostile messages to polarize the region along ethnic and religious lines. Moreover, Russia has armed Serbia and increased Serbs' energy dependence on Russian companies by providing gas and oil at low prices. Moscow has promised Belgrade that it will prevent Kosovo from becoming a member of the United Nations, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in May that "there is a volcano boiling in the heart of Europe," and he may have been happy about it.

Part of the reason Russia is happy to ignite the historic conflict between Kosovo and Serbia is that it would strain NATO resources and undermine U.S. influence in Europe. NATO forced Serbia to withdraw from Kosovo in 1999, and the alliance has maintained a small peacekeeping force in Kosovo ever since. The escalating tensions between Kosovo and Serbia are thus testing the capabilities of NATO forces in the region. Serbian officials thanked Russia for its "support for Serbian territorial integrity and sovereignty," stressing that Moscow's support is a reason for Serbia's refusal to impose sanctions on Russia.

The United States was able to calm the recent wave of instability by exerting pressure on Belgrade, prompting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to announce his intention to withdraw troops from the border, and that Serbia had no intention of invading Kosovo. However, tensions remain inflamed, with Kosovo calling the September Serb attacks a terrorist attack, and Vucic accusing Kosovo of committing a "brutal genocide" against Serbs in Kosovo with the help of the "international community". Vucic does not need an all-out military campaign in Kosovo to further his project of destabilizing the country and humiliating NATO. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Vucic uses armed groups outside the law to advance his goals, his government helped engineer the September offensive according to Kosovo claims, and may use "a few khaki uniforms" (irregular gunmen)* to extend his control over northern Kosovo while retaining the ability to deny, just as Putin did in Crimea.

Vucic. The enemy of the Muslim Albanians and the friend of Russia

Once he became president of Serbia in 2017, Vucic completely destroyed the pro-Western political opposition and strengthened far-right Serb groups to improve his political position. (Anatolia)

Unsurprisingly, Vucic has emerged as the main instigator of tensions with Kosovo. Since Vucic was a junior politician, he was a veteran Serbian nationalist. During the Balkan wars following the collapse of Yugoslavia, Vucic encouraged the nascent Serbian state to crush its ethnic opponents. He has long been disgusted with Kosovo Albanians, who are mostly Muslims and make up almost 90 percent of Kosovo's population. In a 1995 speech, Vucic declared: "For every Serb killed, we will kill 100 Muslims." In 1998, Vucic became the information minister in the government of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, whose regime collapsed after NATO intervention, and is the leader famous for his brutal massacres of Albanians and Bosniaks. Milosevic was arrested for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) after its fall and died in prison before being sentenced.

Today, Vucic is more opportunistic than nationalist, motivated primarily by his desire to remain in office and expand his powers. But this new impulse has not made the Serbian president more merciful than Milošević, who benefits politically from the chaos in the Balkans, which helps him justify his political viability and maintain his power. For example, the Kosovo crisis is helping to divert attention from his political problems at home, quell anti-government protests, and improve his international standing. Through his ability to de-escalate and de-escalate in Kosovo, he has positioned himself as a controller of regional stability, allowing him to negotiate and bargain with Western countries, promising to de-escalate tensions on condition that his requests for economic support are met.

Such bargains are one of the ways Vucic manipulates the United States and Europe. He has aligned with the European Union as part of Serbia's application for membership in the Union. European leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, say they want Serbia to join the bloc and that Vucic has theoretically agreed to join. But he simply did so only for the EU aid he brings, while what he really wants is to keep Serbia on a long and endless membership path, he does not want to join a bloc that forces him to strengthen the rule of law.

To succeed, Vucic needs Putin's help: he wants first and foremost Russian oil, Moscow's main tool of influence. (Anatolia)

Once he became president of Serbia in 2017, Vucic completely destroyed the pro-Western political opposition and strengthened far-right Serb groups to improve his political position. To expand its influence in the region, it is also trying to keep the Kosovo Serb rotation in Belgrade's orbit. Vucic still appears interested in capturing parts of Kosovo by force, declaring in 2018: "The Serbs all know that they have lost Kosovo, but I will do everything I can to recover what I can back, so that in the end it will not be a defeat or a total loss." With the West busy helping Ukraine, supporting Israel, and containing China, Vucic believes his chance to launch operations in Kosovo may soon come.

To succeed, however, Vucic needs Putin's help, as he wants first and foremost Russian oil, Moscow's main tool of influence. Russia and Serbia have also stepped up military-technical cooperation, and Vucic has even called on Moscow to help domestically. In May, for example, Vucic warned against "attempts at color revolutions" (a series of protests that helped topple pro-Russian rulers in former Soviet countries), and in 2021, Serbia and Russia pledged to fight them together. This could result in Russian interference in Serbia's early parliamentary elections on December 17, which Vucic called last October.

To win this election, Vucic will likely rely heavily on the media, an area he knows full well as the former information minister. Under his watch, Belgrade disseminated misinformation to prepare the Serbs for escalatory actions, including accusing Britain of planning the war of independence in Kosovo, alleging that the Kosovo Prime Minister had committed "intimidation" acts against the Serbs, and blaming NATO for the country's high cancer rates, which Belgrade claims was the result of NATO's use of depleted uranium munitions in its 1999 military intervention. Serbian newspapers, largely pro-government, are full of anti-Kosovo narratives, while Serbian radio stations broadcast patriotic songs. Murals reading "Kosovo is Serb" and "When the Army Returns to Kosovo" (the latter slogan implicitly calls on Serbia to invade Kosovo) dotted the streets of Serbia.

Graffiti showing a map of Kosovo with the Serbian flag, on a street in the predominantly ethnic Serb northern part of Mitrovica. (French)

Russia has helped in all this, posting billboards in Russian cities that read: "We unite with Serbia in its grief. One color, one faith, one blood", in support of Serbia's claims regarding the territory of Kosovo. Russian media, which Vucic allowed to work in the country freely, echoed Serbian propaganda, and such stations, such as RT and Sputnik, used this freedom to publish pro-Russian messages about Ukraine, as well as pro-Serbian messages, a task in which she was very successful. Many Serbs believe that both Russian and local Serbian media adopt Kremlin narratives and disseminate Moscow's propaganda.

For Putin, that openness is a gift, as Russia views the Balkans as Europe's weakest link and believes Serbia is the most favorable point. Putin's goal is to turn Moscow into the Balkans' only trusted conflict mediator, giving the Kremlin leverage over Western powers. After all, if peace in the Balkans depends on Putin, NATO officials may have to make concessions to Moscow if they want to avoid war. By pushing the Balkan countries to the brink, the Russian president hopes to show NATO as a card hero and that he will not act if he enters a real test. Even if NATO enters a battle against Serbia, Putin can still win, as opening a new front means the West will not have the means to help Ukraine.

The Kremlin has other reasons to support chaos in the Balkans. Putin uses the so-called "Kosovo precedent" to defend his invasion of Ukraine, arguing that annexing Ukrainian territory is justified, similar to Kosovo's independence. According to this "flawed" logic, made clear by Russia's permanent representative to the UN in a speech in January, the illegal annexation referendums held in occupied Ukrainian territory resemble Kosovo's struggle for liberation from Serbia more than two decades ago, meaning that Kosovo had the right to secede from Serbia and thus Ukrainian territory had the right to join Russia.

The Kremlin's support for Belgrade is not limited to narrow interests, as Russia has a genuine ideological connection to Serbian nationalists. Putin has positioned Russia as the primary defender of traditional cultural values against the liberal West, which many Serbs already share. The Serbian media accuses the West of trying to destroy Russian and Serbian Orthodox churches, and many Serbs support the establishment of a "Serbian world" aimed at uniting all Serbs, including those in Kosovo, under a common Serbian cultural umbrella. As for Russian nationalists, many of them trace Russian civilization to the prince who ruled the region from the present-day city of Kiev. Many Serbs believe that their country should retake Kosovo because it is home to many medieval Serbian Orthodox monasteries, and its land witnessed the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, from which the myth of the emergence of Serbian civilization was born.

West puts pressure on Vucic

Western leaders recognize that Vucic's motivation, at least broadly, is a desire to stay in power. Thus, they are still trying to appease the Serbian President by giving him some incentives, such as economic initiatives and investments, in order to stop his escalatory processes. Last June, for example, a month after Serbs succeeded in harming NATO peacekeepers, the European Union gave Serbia a grant. The US ambassador to Serbia described Vucic as a "constructive partner" and when the Serbian armed forces participated in a multinational military exercise with NATO in June, the US embassy stressed that Belgrade had chosen the West over Russia.

Vucic still maintains a twisted hair in his relationship with the West. According to a leaked document, Serbia agreed to provide ammunition to Ukraine, which Vucic did not deny. In March, Serbia even voted in favor of a UN resolution condemning "Russian aggression." However, these steps are only part of Vucic's balanced plan. Military training has been held in Serbia since 2014, and it does not require much from Belgrade. For Vucic, the ammunition shipments to Ukraine are nothing more than a trade deal and have not weakened Serbian-Russian relations. The UN resolution was nothing more than a symbolic one, an opportunity to strengthen his country in the eyes of Western leaders without risking its relations with Moscow.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (left) and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (right) hold a joint press conference after their meeting in Belgrade, Serbia on November 21, 2023. (Anatolia)

If the West continues to allow Vucic to do more of these actions, it is simply strengthening its power. The man will continue to put NATO to the test trying to prove that the alliance has no teeth. The West has already waved encouraging signs to Vucic: after more than 30 NATO peacekeepers were injured in May clashes with Serbian protesters, the coalition did not detain the perpetrators of the violence for fear of escalating the conflict. But such restraint is a call for greater escalation by Vucic, as well as by the Kremlin, as Russian officials follow what is happening in Kosovo and wonder if they can escape attacking NATO forces and facilities.

Kosovo has at times ignored the West's goals. For example, NATO countries have continued to urge Kosovo to establish the Union of Serbian Municipalities, which Kosovo has not yet undertaken. The West has accused Kosovo of forcibly installing Albanians as mayors in Serb-majority towns, raising tensions with Serbia. In response, the United States imposed measures against Kosovo and canceled the country's participation in the Washington-led Defender Europe 2023 military exercise. But none of Kosovo's actions justify Serbia's current campaign to undermine its independence.

In an attempt to contain the conflict, a week after last May's attack, NATO increased its presence in the region with the deployment of a new corps of 500 Turkish troops, and NATO sent hundreds of British troops to the country in October. NATO must form an alliance that can successfully pressure Belgrade and Moscow to stop their efforts to destabilize the region's political destabilization, making it clear to Vucic that if he continues to take escalatory measures, he will face a series of concrete escalatory repercussions that could include sanctions.

The West's situation is good enough to take such steps. In June 2021, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order allowing Washington to impose sanctions on any party that destabilizes Western Balkan countries. In order to maximize the impact of U.S. sanctions, Britain and the EU should join Washington's efforts, and European leaders should at least make any future aid to Serbia dependent on certain policy changes in Belgrade. For example, the EU could link continued aid to Vucic to imposing sanctions on Russia, aligning its foreign policy with that of the bloc, reducing regional provocations, and meeting the EU's reform agenda, especially when it comes to the rule of law and media freedom.

On the ground, NATO must deploy teams to Kosovo to counter the Russian and Serbian propaganda machine. These teams should target far-right Serb groups and remind them that Russia's rhetoric about "Slavic fraternity" (relative to the Slavic ethnicity of Russians and Serbs)* is nothing but propaganda, and that in the event of a real conflict, Putin will not help them. To achieve this, all NATO needs to do is tell the truth that Putin is preoccupied with his war in Ukraine, and will not provide resources to Serbia for an armed conflict against Kosovo. To give evidence, they can point to the September war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Although Russia has long been an ally of Armenia, Moscow did not provide military support to Armenia in the recent conflict despite Armenian claims, and Armenia lost the war for Nagorno-Karabakh. They can also remind Serbian nationalists that Moscow did not help them in their wars during the nineties.

NATO countries probably don't want to take these measures. In fact, she might want to ignore Vucic altogether. Ukraine's assistance has strained the coalition, so spending time and resources for Kosovo and Serbia seems to be an overkill effort, especially since they can buy the president of Serbia with economic support. But the West needs to recognize that if these tensions are allowed to fester, they will become harder and more costly to resolve. Events between Kosovo and Serbia are rarely confined to their borders; the crisis could easily cast a shadow over other Balkan countries, and their neighbor North Macedonia, a NATO member, could be dragged into crisis. If the escalation continues, the chaos could spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who is close to Putin, has threatened to secede Serb areas from Bosnia, and Dudik even stressed last October that Serbs must "form one state," consisting of Serbia, Republika Srpska (Republika Srpska) and Montenegro. The conflict, if expanded, could even be a bigger gift to Putin, who wants to distract the West from Kiev while he fights to seize more of Ukraine's territory.

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Translation: Hadeer Abdel Azim

This report is about Foreign Affairs and does not necessarily reflect Meydan's location.

Source : Al Jazeera