Brovina for The Geopost: Russia and Serbia with similar narratives to justify actions against Ukraine and Kosovo

The narratives used by Russia towards Ukraine and Serbia towards Kosovo are very similar, says senior researcher at the Octopus Institute, Bleta Brovina, who has published a scientific paper comparing the narratives used by these two countries.

National history and identity, victimization, and the legitimacy of citizenship are the three main narratives through which she elaborates the similarities and differences between Russian and Serbian disinformation.

In an interview for The Geopost, Brovina emphasizes the importance of being aware of disinformation, highlighting the need for fair information on these topics.

Full interview:

The Geopost: You have published a scientific paper, in which you compare the false narratives between Russia and Serbia, can you tell us more about what it is about?

Brovina: Yes, this month our institute “Octopus” has also organized the international conference, which was quite successful and for the first time this paper, which talks about expansionist platforms, was presented publicly, more precisely about the false narratives Russia uses against Ukraine and the false narratives Serbia uses against Kosovo.

With the beginning of the war in Ukraine, attention has been drawn to Ukraine, so there are more scientific publications, but there is also more attention and, unlike previous years, Ukraine has not been talked about much, even in Western universities it is not that a lot is known about Ukraine and the purpose of this paper was to somehow make a comparison with Kosovo, because the narratives used by Russia towards Ukraine and Serbia towards Kosovo have lot of similarities, but they also have some small differences, which I can explain further what they are.

So, the goal has been for the academic world, as well as the public, to be informed about this comparison between the narratives of Russia against Ukraine and the narratives of Serbia that are used against Kosovo, and we have received very good comments, either from the University of Oxford, or from the University of Pennsylvania and international colleagues, who have read the paper that shows that it is necessary that the public, not only Kosovar, not only in the region, but also more broadly, be informed about these.

The Geopost: What do Ukraine and Kosovo have in common in these cases?

Brovina: I have mentioned in my paper the 3 main narratives, it is the historical and national identity narrative that is used either by Russia or Serbia, Russia uses it against Ukraine and Serbia uses it against Kosovo. It is the other narrative of victimization that both countries, Russia and Serbia, use this narrative to portray themselves against their own countries, their own population, even towards international partners as victims, which is not true, it is a false narrative. And it is the third narrative, it is that of the legitimacy of citizenship and sovereignty, which both Russia and Serbia use. Russia to contest the sovereignty and citizenship of Ukraine, while Serbia used Kosovo, in the case of Kosovo, to contest the citizenship of Kosovo and its sovereignty.

In contrast, these are narratives that are shared, towards Kosovo that Serbia uses and towards Ukraine that Russia uses. However, unlike Russia, which uses the Orthodox religion against Ukrainians, to build its narrative that they are one people with Russia and completely, ignoring the unique identity of the Ukrainian people, Serbia has not been able to do this due to the not sharing of the same religion that the Serbian population has compared to the population of Kosovo, for this reason it has used a false narrative that the Kosovar population came from Albania and are descendants.

Here is the difference between these two, because they could not use it in this case because of the completely different language and culture, also the completely different religion of the population of Kosovo, Serbia has not been able to build it in the way Russia has built in Ukraine, but it has used another false narrative which it continues to use, whether for internal purposes, whether for political cohesion, whether for the growth of nationalism in Serbia, but also to gain support, whether from our international partners, who are helping us a lot for Kosovo to move forward towards its European path. So, we must be careful that these narratives are studied and the population, either domestic, regional, European or wider, is informed about this.

The Geopost: What is the importance of these works you have done and what message did you want to deliver?

Brovina: These works are very important, as I said earlier, whether from prestigious universities, it’s not that they had knowledge, especially when the focus is now greater in Ukraine, Kosovo no longer has the focus like in 1999, but with this work I have noticed that the attention and interest in Kosovo has increased and we, both Ukrainians and Kosovars, are freedom-loving people, oriented towards Europe, towards European integration, so it is very important that people are informed about this. I am also working on another analysis of the hybrid war that Russia is waging through the elections in its neighboring countries, and here we should mention, for example, the election processes in Moldova and Georgia, so we are not far from the elections in Kosovo either. We have to take these into account through this analysis, which I believe that even in the future we will have the opportunity to talk together again.

It is important to inform the population and awareness of the situation, that the war in Ukraine is not a war of only Ukrainians, it is a war of all of us, it is a war of European values, it is a war that we all have to do together, our international partners, and emerge victorious in these. For this reason, these topics are of a vital nature for the protection of our freedom-loving, liberal and European values.

/The Geopost