Putin wants to ignite a new war in Europe in the Balkans - analysts
In their view, the Russian Federation uses ethnic tension, as Serbia threatens with kosovo violence, and separatists threaten the collapse of Bosnia. And while Serbia manages the events on the ground, Moscow blows the flames, the Stradner and Montgomery consider. Experts suggest that the Kremlin can resolve a new war in the Balkans three decades after the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia to weaken the support of Ukraine and destabilize the event.
"Since Russian troops have suffered losses in Ukraine, Moscow can win a lot, creating problems in other parts of the continent," the article reads. In addition, researchers believe that a new military conflict in Europe will allow the Kremlin to "gain local influence through weapons and mediation, to distract from Ukraine and to give Russia levers of influence on Western leaders. " "Putin faces new losses in Ukraine, so he tries to open a new front in the Balkans.
Moscow does not need to be sent to the region. Experts summarize. Recently, Putin has frankly declared his desire to weaken the North Atlantic Alliance and return Russia to its historical borders. The right regional crisis would give the Kremlin the opportunity to gain local influence, especially given that Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not NATO members. "The most suitable option for Moscow is the Balkan countries where tension remains high since the Yugoslav wars (1991-2001).
First of all, tension is maintained through Serbia, which wants to expand its influence on neighboring states and threatens military escalation," analytics emphasize. Recently, Serbia President Alexander Vuchich was openly threatened to attack Kosovo, and in May 2023, the Serbian authorities brought their troops in combat readiness after a clash between ethnic Serbian rebels and international peacekeepers, which injured 90 NATO soldiers.
"It was a Kremlin step that used ethnic tension as a reason for military movement. Serbia has long urged to unite" Serbian peace. "Although thousands of NATO soldiers still remain in Kosovo as peacekee . Last September, Vuchich borrowed another page from Putin's play, as researchers named it. Thirty well -armed ethnic Serbs, who, according to Kosovo, were treated with Serbia and related to Vuchich, attacked a police patrol in Kosovo, causing four people to die.
President Serbia denied that he armed the attackers. Stradner and Montgomery remind that in 1998 this concept prompted Serbia to invade Kosovo - a conflict that ended only by NATO military intervention in March 1999, designed to put an end to the violation of the human rights of human rights against the ethnic Albanian population. The White House "was very worried that Serbia could prepare for a military invasion," as the US official representative later told Time.
"Such a conflict can easily spill over to the neighboring northern Macedonia, a member of NATO. The concern of the raising crisis prompted Washington to publish declassified intelligence information about Serbia's military power and attack on Kosovo police," the columnists explained. At the same time, Russia continues operations by spreading the leading messages in Serbia and sending weapons.
China also supplies weapons to this country, which, meanwhile, has promised to increase military expenditures in 2024 and continues to place the so -called humanitarian center (read - the Russian Spy Center in Europe), driven by Russia, not far from NATO's main base in Kosovo. Serbia is not the only hot point in the Balkans. Bosnia and Herzegovina also balances on the verge of collapse.
At the end of last year, the leader of Bosnian Serbs Milorad Dodik, another ally of Russia, threatened that his semi -autonomous region, the Republic of Serbian, would leave the country. In the coming months, this can restore the ethnic violence of the Bosnian War of 1992-1995, which resulted in more than 100,000 people.
In the report of February 5, the Director of the National Intelligence Director of the United States stated that it expects an increase in the risk of interethnic violence in 2024 in the Western Balkans. At the end of last year, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that Russia has plans to destabilize the Balkans, and the UK Foreign Minister David Cameron repeated this concern in January.
According to analysts of the Democracy Protection Fund, the Western powers should prevent further instability in the Balkans. "NATO should refocus military and diplomatic resources and strengthen military obligations in Kosovo. The coalition of NATO members must now publicly undertake military assistance if Serbia or Russia takes aggressive steps in the Balkans," the researchers suggest .
Experts believe that Washington and his allies should also continue to use declassified intelligence to support their diplomacy, and NATO should deploy an anti -hybrid war group to combat Russian and Serbian propaganda campaigns with improved cybersecurity. Focus wrote that Serbia's intelligence services intend to deport a number of "protesting" citizens of the Russian Federation.