Đukanović: Serbia is doing in our region what Russia is doing in its region

Serbia is trying to do in our region what Russia is doing in its region, President of Montenegro Milo Đukanović said today, while a guest of the US Institute of Peace.

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has very strong reflections on the Western Balkans, and its most drastic influence in the Balkans, according to Djukanovic, occurred in Montenegro during the parliamentary elections in 2016.

He noted that Russia then tried to replace the Montenegrin government with a coup d’état and prevent Montenegro from joining NATO, but the country managed to resist.

In the Western Balkans, Đukanović believes, we have a clear replica of what Russia wants to do in its region.

In the Balkans, we have an attempt to create a “Serbian world” on the model of the “Russian world”. Russia is trying to revise the history of the countries of its region in order to achieve Soviet-style dominance and influence, and Serbia is trying to do the same in its own region, Đukanović said.

These are retrograde politicians, he said, who do not want to rule their countries but their peoples.

“Serbia is trying to govern and raise issues in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and North Macedonia, and unfortunately this policy is not yet getting a proper response from our partners in the West,” Đukanović said.

On the presidential elections and possible Russian influence, Đukanović says he would like to confirm that Russia is not interfering, but he says that “this is just an illusion.”

The Russian world is the same as the Serbian world. Russian policy in their region is equivalent to Serbian policy in our region, and the most important instrument of both policies is the Orthodox Church. Both the Serbian and the Russian churches are today negligible religious organisations, they are absolutely political organisations, Đukanović said.

It is regrettable, he added, that for all his “timely warnings since 2016, there has not been a more appropriate response from some Western titles”./Danas/