Kateryna Shymkevych: Vucic and Fico keep Putin’s influence alive (Part 1)

A wide network of Kremlin influence agents is operating in the Balkans under the guise of scientists, public organizations and scientific institutions, spreading the narratives of the “Russian world”.

At the same time, Ukraine has a unique experience in combating disinformation and propaganda, which can be useful to democratic countries in the conditions of hybrid war.

This was told in an exclusive interview with The Geopost by Kateryna Shymkevych, candidate of historical sciences, associate professor of the Department of Law and Public Administration of the Zaporizhzhia Institute of Economics and Information Technologies, who is also the founder of the public organization “Analytical Center for Balkan Studies”.

The full interview is here:

The Geopost: The reason for our conversation was the news about the first anniversary of the publication of the magazine “Mist. Ukraine-Balkans”, which is published with the assistance of the public organization “Analytical Center for Balkan Studies”. This is an opportunity to reflect not only on the situation in relations between Ukraine and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, but also on Ukrainian Balkan studies in general. So the first question to you is: what does Ukrainian Balkan studies look like today?

Shymkevych: A very good name, but, unfortunately, there is no such concept, in my opinion. Perhaps my colleagues who deal with this region will argue, but there is no such concept as Ukrainian Balkan studies. There are separate studies on the Balkans, but they are mostly devoted to Bulgaria, partly to the countries of the former Yugoslavia. And there is nothing so comprehensive, thorough on all the countries that the Balkan Peninsula includes. We have long-established historical ties with Bulgaria. Accordingly, there is a powerful layer of Bulgarians (at least before the start of the full-scale war).

I could name several centers where Bulgarian studies developed in our country. These are Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, where the largest number of Bulgarians live. What is connected with the Greeks has developed a little: this is Mariupol State University, which is now moved to Kyiv, and Odesa. Some were engaged in the study of Greeks in other cities, but it is impossible to say that this is a comprehensive direction.

The situation is more complicated with other countries. Chernivtsi has certain developments in Romania – this is explained by the proximity and various cross-border connections. Everyone is researching the countries of the former Yugoslavia, because it has been relevant and important since 2014.

People see that these topics fit into our background, and begin to draw some parallels, which is not always correct. There are even defended dissertations, if we talk about the scientific, academic level. Some of them were defended back in the early 90s. When I was writing my own dissertation, I tried to see what was already available in this field.

Most of the research is devoted to Yugoslavia, there are one or two dissertations on Macedonia. It seems that there was one dissertation on Serbia, quite a lot on Croatia, on Slovenia. Unfortunately, it is all fragmentary. We constantly emphasize that this direction needs to be developed. But the Western Balkans region is mostly included in the broader context of Southeast Europe. Accordingly, it is not singled out.

There is a lack of specialists who would combine knowledge of the language with a deep understanding of culture, peculiarities of mentality, linguistics, history. We also have practically no experts in international, regional relations who would specialize in this region – and it represents a geopolitical “Balkan chessboard” in miniature. Many actors are involved there: the USA, the EU, China, Russia, even Ukraine, which, by the way, is already beginning to actively promote its position.

Why are they not training specialists? Because universities are dominated by studies that are called either European or Southeast European studies. Students know very little about the fact that, for example, Montenegro, Croatia are atypical maritime countries. There are countries that are friendly to Ukraine: Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia. And immediately certain parallels arise.

Everyone knows about Kosovo. Since 2014, who has not “pulled an owl on the globe”, trying to compare Crimea and Kosovo! But this is mostly journalism. Unfortunately, at the level of a scientific and academic approach, so that we can talk about university courses or a separate direction, such as, for example, Balkan studies – we do not have such a thing yet. This is my personal point of view, perhaps quite direct. But there is still no interest in this region as we would like. It is special and mostly situational.

The Geopost: At the same time, Ukraine should be interested in countering the onslaught of Russian propaganda in the Balkans. Do we have real opportunities for this?

Shymkevych: I think that you in the media sphere know more than me what mechanisms can be developed and how to counter them, considering that Russia Today is not only broadcasting to Serbia. They also broadcast in the part of Kosovo where the northern municipalities are not controlled by the central authorities. This is Montenegro, and Banja Luka with the Republika Srpska as part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is even part of North Macedonia, oddly enough. They (Kremlin propagandists – Ed.) are present not only on YouTube. Last year they launched satellite television, actively promote Telegram channels.

What I like about Ukraine: we have moved from ordinary fact-checking to developing mechanisms to combat disinformation and propaganda. This is an experience that we should be proud of and not be silent about. Because in most Balkan countries, everything comes down to fact-checking. Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria are very proud that they are actively opposing Russian propaganda. But this, again, is only fact-checking. Of course, they have many different regional united networks, and the Western Balkans are separately united in such fact-checking networks. The European Union has created separate media hubs to combat propaganda for Slovenia and Croatia, for Romania and Bulgaria, the countries of the Western Balkans, but this is the level of fact-checking. What is fact-checking? We take a fact and explain why it is not true. And then?

But Ukraine, over the past 10-11 years, when aggression began against us and hybrid warfare intensified, already has these countermeasures, and we should share them with our colleagues.

The Geopost: The result of this situation was the election results in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula.

Shymkevych: Yes, especially those that Romania has shown again. The December elections in Romania proved that fact-checking needs to be replaced with active mechanisms to combat propaganda and disinformation, at least at the level of TikTok. But the Romanians did not draw any solid conclusions. As, in principle, do the Ukrainian experts who are trying to do this. Russia provokes all this. Every country has internal problems. Russia does not invent them, it catalyzes them. The same problems that existed in Romania in December 2024 remained in May 2025. This is an economic situation that people are dissatisfied with. This is corruption, a constant change of power from one party to another, that is, no changes. People live in the hope of changing something, but no changes are happening.

As a result, one pro-Russian candidate won, now we see the victory of another. Well, what has changed? Pro-European candidates simply gained a little more votes. Yes, there will be a second round. But there is a threat that this candidate may come to power. This indicates that internal problems are not being resolved. And Russia has changed its tactics – now it is heating them up less openly. This is exactly what you asked me about regarding mechanisms for countering propaganda, and Ukraine can show them. For example, in Romania there are Russian centers at universities: the Russian Center, the Russian House. Why do they still exist? Well, close them! This is an agreement on cultural, scientific and technical cooperation. It is enough to break this cooperation, because proving that such institutions are conducting propaganda work is very simple: you open a website and see what events they are holding. There is no large Russian ethnic diaspora in Romania, so we are not talking about oppression of the rights of Russians. Of course, Moscow will look at it differently.

You can monitor everything. This is not the competence of the European Union. Such institutions as the Russian Center, the Russian House, Russian cabinets should be closed only by national governments. This is the first low-level, but they need to be closed. Zagreb closed them. They were closed in Ljubljana, but they continue to operate in Maribor. They are in Bulgaria, Greece, I am not talking about Serbia at all. These are hotbeds of espionage, the spread of propaganda, which must be fought. This is a huge job.

For example, Ukrainian scientists, teachers can share how to work with history topics. As May 9 approaches, this apparatus of “victory obsession” is visible in almost all Balkan countries. And not only there. The revival of the “immortal regiment” in Washington is some kind of nonsense!

National histories belittle the achievements of their own troops, their own army in World War II. We see this in the example of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, where a change of emphasis has occurred. The contribution of Josip Broz Tito’s partisans is belittled: they liberated practically all of Yugoslavia on their own, and the Second and Third Ukrainian Fronts are the fronts of the Red Army. But the partisans are not put in first place, but the Soviet army. Why is such a replacement of concepts taking place? Because Russian propaganda exalts itself by devaluing others.

And here Ukrainian teachers, historians, lecturers can have their say: explain that such topics must be worked with very carefully. There must be a consensus. Start small, do not immediately dive into the 90s, this is a complex topic. But teachers still work with them.

Departments of Russian studies are another center of influence that we do not see, but it is very powerful. Almost every university in the Balkans has a department of Russian studies. Some even have two, one for the language and one for literature.

The interview will continue next week

/The Geopost