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Contrary to conventional assumptions, Serbia and
Russia do not have a close alliance but an asymmetric coupling in
which the Kremlin exploits its dominance. When Moscow needs Serbia
to fulfill certain international tasks to Russia’s advantage, it
increases pressure on Belgrade. This is evident with the ongoing
debate over border adjustments in the Western Balkans.
Although official history claims that Russia was
instrumental in liberating Serbia from the Ottomans, the real
ambitions of the Tsars was to expand their empire toward the
Mediterranean. Christian Orthodoxy and pan-Slavism were useful
ideological tools crafted to convince Serbs that Russia was
defending their national interests.
After World War Two, Stalin undercut Serbian
ambitions and prevented the emergence of a Balkan Communist
federation combining Yugoslavia and Bulgaria because he feared that
a strong state in the region would challenge Moscow’s diktat. Tito’s
Yugoslavia subsequently demonstrated that Belgrade was unwilling to
remain a loyal puppet when it broke from the Soviet bloc in 1948 and
helped to establish the non-aligned movement.
Milošević and Yeltsin were not close allies but
exploited each other’s political ambitions. With the onset of war in
Yugoslavia during the 1990s, Belgrade appealed to Russian solidarity
whether over preserving Yugoslav integrity, creating a Greater
Serbia, or retaining control over Kosova. Moscow in turn manipulated
Serbia’s grievances against the US and NATO to demonstrate that
Russia remained a major factor in European affairs. However, since
the overthrow of Milošević, Serbian governments have adopted the
role of Russia’s junior partner, enabling Putin to transform Serbia
into Moscow’s outpost in the Western Balkans.
The Kremlin calculated that in exchange for
blocking Kosova’s entry into the UN and other international bodies
in which Moscow has a veto, Belgrade would surrender ground to
Russia and disqualify itself from Western institutions. The scars
from the 1999 NATO intervention over Kosova to prevent the genocide
of Albanians have not healed sufficiently for Belgrade to petition
for NATO membership. And through its propaganda weapons Moscow makes
sure that anti-Alliance sentiments are constantly nurtured among the
Serb public.
Russian media also persistently broadcast the
disinformation that Russia is Serbia’s main economic benefactor,
even though its trade and investment in the country is not only
dwarfed by the EU but is based largely on opaque deals that benefit
corrupt politicians. Serbia was persuaded to give Gazprom majority
shares in its major oil and gas company, NiS, and entered into other
deals that tied the country tightly with Russia’s energy supplies.
Belgrade was also pressured to open a “Russian-Serbian Humanitarian
Center” near the southern city of Niš, which Russian services can
use as an intelligence gathering facility vis-à-vis the West.
In a new twist to its exploitation of Belgrade,
the Kremlin now seeks to benefit from Washington’s goal to
“normalize” relations between Serbia and Kosova. As the notion of
land swaps has been mooted, the Kremlin is pushing Serbia to accept
territorial exchanges with Kosova despite the political resistance
in Belgrade. The unprecedented meeting between President Putin and
Kosova’s President Hashim Thaçi during the World War One Armistice
anniversary in Paris, the first between the heads of both states,
ratcheted up the pressure on Serbia’s Prime Minister Aleksandar
Vučić.
Putin’s strategists are pursuing two main
objectives. First, border changes in the Balkans approved by Western
powers can be trumpeted as a valuable precedent and example for
Crimea, Donbas, Transnistria, and other regions coveted by Russia.
Officials can contend that changes in the Kosova-Serbia border
simply bring co-ethnics into the motherland. Hence, a similar
process can be applied to territories with sizeable Russian
populations, including parts of Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine,
Moldova, and Kazakhstan.
Second, the Kremlin simultaneously calculates that
border changes in the Balkans can create havoc for NATO and the EU
by stimulating calls for further partitions. Local nationalists
could orchestrate violence to demonstrate that ethnic co-existence
is not feasible and borders have to be adjusted. A ripple effect of
territorial aspirations would not only affect unsettled states such
as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, but also embroil NATO members
Croatia, Albania, and Montenegro.
Vučić will come under increasing Western pressure
to forge a deal with Prishtina but may not be able to contain
domestic nationalist opposition without Kremlin backing. If Belgrade
officially acknowledges the loss of Kosova through a bilateral
accord, Russia’s appeals to Slavic Orthodox solidarity may be
insufficient. Instead, and regardless of Vučić’s reluctance, Moscow
can express support for the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Serbia’s incorporation of Republika Srpska (RS). This would be a
bigger prize than the northern fringes of Kosova, particularly as RS
leaders yearn to join Serbia.
The result of Moscow’s deepening intervention will
be to embroil Vučić in a new conflict with the EU, NATO, and the
United States over Bosnia-Herzegovina. This will also serve Kremlin
interests by blocking Belgrade’s path toward EU accession. The
lesson for Serbia is that unless it breaks free from Russia’s
suffocating political grip, it cannot achieve its national potential
and will continue to be exploited as a pawn in Putin’s campaign to
dismantle the West.
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