Match in the powder cellar

On the night of August 1, the first war in history almost broke out in the Balkans over car license plates.

On the eve of the Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, said that from August 1, license plates and personal documents issued by state bodies of Serbia cease to be valid in Kosovo.

According to Serbian Foreign Minister Nikola Selakovich, Pristina is thus “preparing hell” for Kosovo Serbs, who would instantly lose the opportunity to enter the region from Serbia, and simply move along the roads of Kosovo.

Even before 1999, Serbia issued (and continued to issue all subsequent years) numbers with the letters KS - Kosovo.

Pristina issues its own RKS signs - the Republic of Kosovo, thereby emphasizing its "statehood", which Belgrade does not recognize.

In itself, the issue of replacing license plates and IDs has been discussed by Belgrade and Pristina for many years.

In 2016, both parties signed an agreement under which the validity of KS numbers was extended until the end of 2021.

Not so long ago, the same Albin Kurti stated that the Serbs living in the "republic" would need to re-register their cars and change

- this is how license plates are called in the Balkans - on RKS until September 30.

Belgrade also seemed to agree with this, since the 2016 agreement ceased to operate, and it was mainly local municipalities that opposed it, which fell on additional financial burden.

A civil campaign of disobedience unfolded in the north of the region.

"To not give up!

KS stays!”

- stickers with this slogan could often be seen on the rear windows of cars.

But nothing foreshadowed an acute conflict.

And then Kurti suddenly changed his position.

Without any reasons?

No matter how!

On July 26, the President and Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Kosovo, Vyosa Osmani and Albin Kurti, visited Washington, where they met with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

The meeting, as they say, was held in a warm and friendly atmosphere - in any case, the Albanian side thanked the American side for "saving the Albanian people" and expressed its ardent desire to continue helping the United States in the fight against "Putin and his supporters' attempts to destabilize Europe through the Western Balkans ".

Immediately upon his return from Washington, Kurti made his provocative statement.

Further events unfolded quickly and dramatically, like in an action-packed political thriller.

In the northern Serb-populated part of the city of Kosovska Mitrovica, air raid sirens howled.

On the roads Pristina - Leposavich, near the town of Rudare and near the city of Zvecan, the Serbs began to erect barricades of trucks and bulldozers.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo closed two border points connecting Kosovo and Serbia - "Jarinje" and "Bernjak".

On the Friendship Bridge, connecting the Serbian and Albanian parts of Kosovska-Mitrovica, stood the Italian peacekeepers from the KFOR contingent.

Albanian special forces ROSU attempted to storm the barricades.

Shots rang out and, according to reports on local Internet chats, explosions.

About a thousand armed security forces were transferred to the line of administrative demarcation with Serbia.

In turn, the Serbian army began the transfer of aviation to military airfields in the south of the country.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said

to deliver an emergency address to the nation.

He was expected at 21:00, then at 22:00, but it sounded only at 23:00, after a meeting at the General Staff of Serbia, at which Vucic was personally present.

But by this time, two events had taken place that had the most direct impact on the Kosovo crisis.

Firstly, Richard Grenell, the former special envoy of former US President Donald Trump to the Balkans, tweeted a striking (you can’t call it otherwise) entry in which a high-ranking American diplomat directly called the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Kosovo Kurti a fascist.

“Once again, the far-left radical and seasoned fascist prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, is unilaterally taking a step towards ditching Serbian license plates and identity cards in Kosovo.

Silly.

Reckless.

And you don't need to.

Why don't Jake Sullivan and also Anthony Blinken tell him to stop his fascist methods?

Secondly, immediately after that, the US Ambassador to the Republic of Kosovo, Jeff Hovenier, urged the Pristina authorities to postpone the ban on Serbian identity cards and car numbers for 30 days - and the "independent" leadership of Kosovo immediately met him halfway.

Therefore, when Vucic assured the Serbs in his address that “tomorrow there will be a de-escalation” and “we will achieve peace together,” he played for sure.

The wick leading to the powder keg was put out by the same hands that had lit it.

But the question remains: why was it done?

The Joe Biden administration, enduring one foreign policy humiliation after another (after the disastrous visit of the American president to the Middle East, followed by an even more shameful refusal of the official visit of Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan), needs at least some demonstration of its influence outside the country.

By pulling the strings of the Kosovo puppet Kurti, Washington showed that he still has gunpowder in the powder flasks - in any case, the Democrats are still capable of arranging "controlled chaos" in the Balkans.

But even in the United States itself, this ability of the White House is far from being admired by everyone.

Take the same Grenell - on behalf of Donald Trump, he conscientiously tried to find a compromise between Belgrade and Pristina, working out, in particular, a deal to exchange North Kosovo, populated predominantly by Serbs, for three southern Serbian communities, where the Albanians make up the majority of the population - Presevo, Buyanovac and Medvedje.

And it is possible that during Trump's second term, the Kosovo problem could have been resolved.

But then old Biden and the progressive democrats came to the White House with their ideas about the Balkans (and with hatred for the Serbs), and the Kosovo prime minister trained by Grenell, Avdulla Hoti, was replaced by the faithful servant of the democrats Albin Kurti.

Therefore, when Grenell wrote his tweet about the fascist Kurti, he, of course, was also driven by personal resentment: so much effort - and everything goes down the drain.

But, arranging another crisis in Kosovo, the Democrats were thinking not only about how to annoy Trump and his diplomats, whom they hate.

The main target of the license plate provocation was not even Serbia, but Russia.

This, however, is not difficult to guess by reading the press release of the meeting of Kurti and Osmani with the US chief diplomat Blinken.

Alexander Vučić compared the situation with the aggravated conflict between Serbia and the self-proclaimed Kosovo with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“The regime in Pristina is trying to take advantage of the mood in the world by playing the “big Putin ordered little Putin” card.

Therefore, little Zelensky, in the person of Albin Kurti, will save someone and fight against the Great Serbian hegemony, ”he remarked with irony.

And Vladimir Đukanović, a senior party figure in the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, wrote on his Twitter: “It seems to me that, apparently, Serbia will be forced to start denazifying the Balkans.

I would like to be wrong."

Of course, the "denazification of the Balkans" is not included in the plans of the West.

For him, on the contrary, it is critical to get Serbia to join the anti-Russian sanctions, even if only formally.

This, according to strategists in Washington and Brussels, will destroy the friendship between Russians and Serbs, which has long hindered the implementation of Euro-Atlantic plans.

But Alexander Vučić is well aware that, having succumbed to the blackmail of the West, he will immediately lose the support of his own people: more than 80% of Serbs oppose anti-Russian sanctions.

Therefore, the strategy of Belgrade's Western "partners" is to gradually undermine the position of the Serbian president, seeking either his resignation or weakening to such an extent that he can no longer resist their pressure.

The intra-Serbian opposition is working for the same result, criticizing Vučić for allegedly being a puppet of Moscow, “very actively and successfully implementing its policy and using it as a factor in destabilizing the region” (as one of the leaders of the liberal opposition Zoran Vuletić said in an interview yesterday ).

And the organization of a crisis similar to the crisis of July 31, of course, has as its goal to force Vučić, who is skillfully balancing between the interests of the EU, Russia and China, to choose one and only side - it is clear, however, which one.

An interesting point: in his nightly address to the nation, Vučić thanked those who supported Serbia, as well as all those who were correct and expressed the correct point of view.

“I especially want to thank the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, who reacted in a very correct way,” he stressed.

But gratitude to Russian diplomats mysteriously disappeared from the reports of most Serbian media - only thanks to “representatives of the American embassy” and “personally to EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell” remained.

First of all, this speaks of the fact that the media space of the Balkans is slowly but surely captured by Western players.

For example, the influential TV channel N1 and TV channel Nova C are subsidiaries of CNN, and the Montenegrin media holding Vijesti was recently bought by United Media, owned by London-based BC Partners.

In such a situation, it will be very difficult for Vucic to protect the interests of the Serbs in Kosovo.

The Americans work clumsily and rudely, the Europeans are subtler and more diplomatic, but both use the Kosovo map to quarrel Belgrade with Moscow.

And it is possible that for the "mediation services" of the US Ambassador to Kosovo Hovenier (as well as for the "peacekeeping mission" of the EU Special Representative for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina Miroslav Lajcak, with whom Vucic spoke for a long time yesterday by phone) Vucic will be put up (and may already be issued) a mandatory invoice.

I would very much like to be wrong, but it is possible that in the coming weeks Belgrade may take at least symbolic steps towards the anti-Russian bloc.

After all, although the "war for car numbers" did not break out that night, the conflict itself did not disappear.

And tension, despite statements from both sides, still persists: barricades on the roads of the region have not been dismantled, and even new ones are being erected in the border town of Rudar.

It is in the will of the last Serbs of Kosovo to resist the repressive policies of Pristina that the weak link in the plans of the West lies.

Vučić himself admitted at yesterday's press conference: "The Serbian people (Kosovo. -

) listen to our pleas less and less, and I urge that we try to keep the peace at almost any cost."

Driven to despair, the Serbs can raise an armed uprising against the Kosovars - and then Belgrade will have no choice.

If Pristina "dares to persecute the Serbs, to mistreat the Serbs, to kill the Serbs, Serbia will win," Vučić said.

But in this case, a new big war in the Balkans cannot be avoided.

And whether the West, involved in countering Russia in Ukraine and China in the situation around Taiwan, is interested in another big conflict is a big question.

Playing with matches in the powder magazine of Europe, as the Balkans have been called since Bismarck's time, may end up costing Washington and Brussels too much.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.