Varga for The Geopost: Authoritarian Vucic is trying to replace the lost Kosovo with the Republika Srpska

Under the pretext of war to “keep Kosovo within the borders of Serbia”, Belgrade is creating a new political reality and increasing its influence in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Montenegro. While Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is turning Serbia into an authoritarian state, he claims that he is the only one who can control the Serbian nationalists in the negotiations with Pristina.

This is what Serbian political scientist and journalist Boris Varga says in an editorial for The Geopost, adding that Vučić most likely plans to at least get “Republika Srpska” for the lost Kosovo and give his voters a “sweet dream” of “Serbo-Russian world”.

“However, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation do not want peace,” he writes.

Varga, who also attended the Balkan disinformation summit held last month in Pristina under the organization of The Geopost, points out that it is worrying that no one in the European Union is asking about organized crime in connection with the authorities in Serbia .

“Under the pretext that he is the only one who can control the Serbian nationalists in the negotiations with Pristina, Vučić is turning Serbia into an authoritarian state.” The elections in Serbia are increasingly resembling the elections in Russia. And it is very worrying that nobody in the EU is asking about corruption and organized crime in connection with the authorities in Serbia, which has achieved the worst results in this area in the last decade since Vučić came to power,” he writes.

SERBIA PRODUCES RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA FOR ITS OWN NEEDS

The increased presence of Russian propaganda in Serbia began much earlier than the total invasion and war in Ukraine. In Serbia’s foreign policy, Russia appears as its strategic foreign policy partner immediately after the declaration of Kosovo’s independence in 2008. At that time, the political parties that overthrew Slobodan Milošević was still in power in Belgrade.

Russia gets a new opportunity to enter Serbia in 2012, after the Serbian Progressive Party took power, which is a breakaway major part of the Serbian Radical Party, led by Tomislav Nikolić and the current president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, assistants of Vojislav Šešelj, convicted in the International Tribunal in The Hague.

The next, third stage of the expansion of Russian influence in Serbia is the Kremlin’s new foreign policy doctrine, when exactly ten years ago Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and started a hybrid war. However, that hybrid war was not only against Ukraine but also against the West.

The Western Balkan region, which is security fragile, was an ideal field for causing instability in the EU’s neighborhood. The independence of Kosovo was used as a false story, which is why Crimea was annexed. Putin justifies the annexation of Crimea with the precedent of recognizing Kosovo, even though the two cases have no similarities. Ethnic cleansing did not take place in Crimea, while it took place in Kosovo with almost a one million Kosovar Albanians, as a prelude to genocide. The Kremlin cynically boasts that they took Crimea from the Ukrainians almost “without firing a shot.”

Serbia very slowly began to accept that the issue of Kosovo’s independence is a geopolitical fact, but the situation is changing exactly two years ago, on February 24, 2022, a total Russian attack on Ukraine took place. Putin announced the direct physical destruction of the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian nation, as well as the annexation of the conquered Ukrainian territories to Russia.

A new type of fascism – “rashcism” or “putinism” – awakened revanchist sentiments among all Serbian nationalists. Both “softer” and extreme Serbian nationalists began to believe again, as during the 80s of the 20th century, that Serbia could similarly resolve its territorial issues, this time with the help of Russia. First of all in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.

Russian propaganda in the Western Balkans created the concept of a “Serbian-Russian world” (Serbian – “srpsko-ruski svet”, Russian – “serbsko-ruskiy myr”), which is a euphemism for the idea of a “Greater Serbia”, militarily defeated in the NATO interventions in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999.

Serbia is the only EU candidate country that has not imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation, and Russian war propaganda – “Russia Today” and “Sputnik” – is freely broadcast in Serbia. But the specificity of the war propaganda of the “Serbian-Russian world” is that the contents are not always quoted from Moscow, but are often created and spread to the media in the region – in Bosnia (Republika Srpska) and Montenegro – through the media controlled by Serbia. An example is the Serbian circulation tabloids “Infomer” and “Alo”, which was the only one to report that “Ukraine attacked Russia” two days before the war. According to this principle, Belgrade creates pro-Russian content intended for its political needs and goals.

And what are those goals? The non-democratic regime of Aleksandar Vučić saw the crisis and the war in Ukraine as a new opportunity. Vučić never renounced Serbia’s expansion policy in the Western Balkans region. “Sitting on two chairs” – Brussels and Moscow – and looking up to his neighbor Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Vučić built his “own political path” with the help of Russian propaganda and in the circumstances of the war in Ukraine.

Vučić sees that the enlargement of the EU is very far away and he is turning Serbia towards regional ambitions in the Western Balkans. Under the pretext of fighting for the preservation of Kosovo within the borders of Serbia, Belgrade is creating a new political reality and increasing its influence in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Montenegro.

Under the pretext that he is the only one who can control Serbian nationalists in negotiations with Pristina, Vučić is turning Serbia into an authoritarian state. The elections in Serbia look more and more like the elections in Russia. And it is very worrying that no one in the EU is even asking about corruption and organized crime connected to the authorities in Serbia, which has the worst results in this area in the last decade. Since Vučić came to power.

Vučić most likely plans to get at least the Republika Srpska for the lost Kosovo and give his voters a “sweet dream” of a “Serbian-Russian world”. However, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation do not want peace, do not want “sweet dream” and stability for the Western Balkans. The Kremlin wants to see the Balkans as “Second European War” and does not want to see the state of Kosovo built, the European future of Montenegro, Bosnia and Kosovo. Regardless of the nice name, Moscow will not accept the “Serbian-Russian world”, which completely does not submit to its interests.