Russian portal: Abazovic’s victory would be good news for Moscow

The narrowing of Milo Đukanović’s powers could benefit Moscow – the Russian news portal NEWS.ru assesses the latest developments in Montenegro today.

The author of the analysis, Igor Serebryani, writes that Đukanović is a “dinosaurian” opponent of the Kremlin, because he is unconditionally pro-Western.

“Milo Đukanović’s goal in various capacities is to integrate Montenegro as deeply as possible into the Western community; during his rule, since the early 1990s, the country has introduced the euro and joined NATO”.

“This is the opposite of Serbia, as Belgrade has always been closely linked to Russia and is constantly drawing its ‘younger brothers’ – the Montenegrins – into its orbit. The latter, as befits younger brothers, saw such patronage not so much as a protection as a trauma to national pride”.

NEWS.ru. claims that “the dualities ‘Russia-Ukraine’ and ‘Serbia-Montenegro’ coincide in that the two ‘older’ halves are drawn eastwards, the ‘younger’ half westwards; and about a hundred years ago, on those same December days, the Montenegrins even rose up (unsuccessfully) to free themselves from the Serbian crown”.

The portal quotes a statement by Dr Elena Guskova of the Centre for the Study of the Contemporary Balkan Crisis of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who praised Dritan Abazovic:

“He is young, energetic, knows what to say, he ignites with speeches”.

“Abazovic may not be as a Westerner as Đukanović, but it would be wrong to consider an ethnic Albanian a ‘Serbophile’ or a ‘Russophile’.

“Nevertheless, the victory of the Dritan Abazovic line could be, according to the logical scheme of ‘tell me who your friend is’ – or in this case the same enemy – GOOD NEWS for Moscow, which now has to look for allies in the world”, the Russian portal assesses./Pobjeda/