German media on tensions between Serbia and Kosovo: Russians who fled from Putin are changing Belgrade

News about new tensions in the north of Kosovo, as well as about the fact that Serbia has raised the combat readiness of the army, is reported by several German media. The Frankfurt newspaper writes about how the Russians who fled from Putin are changing Belgrade.

“Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo are on the rise again”, reports the portal of the German public service ARD. “Following the shooting near Serbian roadblocks in Kosovo, Serbia has raised the combat readiness of its army on the border with the neighbouring country to the ‘highest level’ (…) It is unclear what this order means on the ground, especially since Serbian forces have been on the border for some time on standby.”

Sueddeutsche Zeitung also writes that tensions between Kosovo and Serbia have increased in recent weeks and that the Serbian government has therefore raised the combat readiness of its army. The Munich newspaper reminds that the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, ordered the Chief of the General Staff, Milan Mojsilović, to go to the border area, because the situation at the border is “complicated and complex”.

The weekly Spiegel recalls that “hundreds of Serbs have been blocking traffic in the north of Kosovo for weeks” and adds, “Just before the Chief of the General Staff left for the border area, several Serbian media shared a video clip of gunfire on the internet. According to the reports, the ‘fights’ took place on Sunday evening. Kosovo Armed Forces were reportedly trying to remove a barricade that had been erected by Serbs. This was immediately denied by the Kosovo police,” Spiegel reported in its online edition.

With the arrival of the Russians, Belgrade is changing at an incredible speed

The situation in the Balkans, that is, in Serbia, is also the subject of an article in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung about the massive influx of Russians into the country. The author of the article, journalist Mihael Martens, believes that the Serbian capital has been changing in recent months at a pace unprecedented in its long history.

“This is due to the large number of people from Russia who have settled in the Serbian capital after the Russian attack on Ukraine. They came in two waves. The first wave swept through Belgrade shortly after 24 February, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. These were mostly strongly oppositional Russians who could not or would not reconcile their consciences to continuing to live in the aggressor’s country. Others came mainly for business reasons, because they did not want to lose access to markets and globally networked banks. Pragmatic interests and moral revulsion towards the Russian regime are often combined. They wanted to keep their business going and they did not want their son to grow up in the fascist society that Putin has created in Russia, as a successful couple in the IT sector explains.”

Most Russians in Belgrade do not have financial problems, but some Serbs do now, as the arrival of large numbers of Russians has led to a multiplication of rental prices, according to the Frankfurt newspaper.

The second wave of immigration, as pointed out, began when Putin announced the mobilization on September 21. “This wave is not yet over, on the contrary. The number of Russian citizens registered in Serbia is growing every day. According to Serbia’s Ministry of Interior, more than 140,000 Russian citizens have registered in Serbia, most of them in Belgrade.

The text recalls that, according to the Ministry of the Interior, there are about 23 000 Ukrainians and about 5 500 Belarusians in Belgrade. “However, these almost 170,000 people – there are probably more in the meantime – are not evenly distributed in the city of about two million inhabitants. They live mostly in the centre and in the better parts of the city. (…) Russian has become Belgrade’s second language, and Russians are the largest minority in the city.”

This second wave, according to the assessment of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, is considered less political. “Part of this wave are some Russians who are perhaps less against Putin and more against the effects his policies are having on them. In any case, they have no intention of losing their lives on the battlefield for Putin.”

There is sometimes animosity between first- and second-wave emigrants in Belgrade, and politically active first-wave Russians are annoyed by the opportunism of some of their compatriots living in Belgrade, writes a Frankfurt-based newspaper.

“But their reticence is not necessarily always due to opportunism. One of the organisers of the Russian diaspora says that some Russians donate generously to the anti-Putin protests, but are careful not to appear in public because they still have relatives or business interests in Russia. Their caution is understandable, as the Serbian secret service has recently been headed by Aleksandar Vulin, a pro-Russian politician and loyal supporter of President Aleksandar Vucic. They do not want to expose themselves in a country whose population has welcomed them with open arms and whose policies are faltering,” Martens concludes in an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung./DW/