EXPLAINER: Putin’s Balkan narrative argument for Ukraine war

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

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FILE - A woman walks in front of the destroyed former Serbian army headquarters in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 24, 2010. Well before Russian tanks and troops rolled into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was using the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to ostensibly offer justification for the invasion of a sovereign European country. The Russian president has been particularly focused on NATO’s bombardment of Serbia in 1999 and the West’s acceptance of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. He claims both created an illegal precedent that shattered international law and order, apparently giving him an excuse to invade Ukraine. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)


BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Well before Russian tanks and troops rolled into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was using the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to ostensibly offer justification for the invasion of a sovereign European country.

The Russian president has been particularly focused on NATO’s bombardment of Serbia in 1999 and the West’s acceptance of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. He claims both created an illegal precedent that shattered international law and order, apparently giving him an excuse to invade Ukraine.

Putin’s arguments, repeated several times since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, appear to follow this line: If different ex-Yugoslav republics and the former Serbian province of Kosovo could become independent with Western backing and wars, why can’t Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea peninsula and the rebel-controlled, majority Russian areas in the east of the country split from their mother nations — with Russian help?

With strong U.S. support, ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo seceded over Serbia’s strong objections. Russia, a historic ally of the Serbs, argued then that this set a precedent that could trigger a series of statehood claims elsewhere in the world.

In July 2010, U.N.’s highest court ruled that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was legal but did not outright endorse Kosovo’s claim to statehood.

There are many differences between the Russian attack on Ukraine, seen in the West as one of the darkest moments for Europe since World War II, and the wars in the Balkans that left more than 120,000 people dead and millions homeless. There are also some similarities.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN DIFFERENCES?

NATO didn’t occupy Kosovo after driving Serbian forces out of the former Serbian province, but sent in peacekeepers. Russian troops, meanwhile, took control of Crimea even before its referendum to join Russia was held.

NATO intervened in Kosovo only after significant evidence of Serbian abuses against ethnic Albanians, including mass killings and deportations. Russian forces intervened in Ukraine with no major abuses or violence reported against ethnic Russians.

Kosovars declared independence but did not join their ethnic brethren in neighboring Albania in a single state. Crimea, which has a majority Russian population, signed a deal to join Russia two days after the referendum which was deemed flawed and undemocratic by the West.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN SIMILARITIES?

Both interventions started with false claims that ethnic minorities are being persecuted in neighboring countries. The Serb-led military unleashed a heavy barrage of artillery against towns and villages in Croatia in 1991, something similar to the initial attacks by Russian forces against Ukraine.

Just as Croats, Bosnians and Kosovo Albanians feared Serbian repression during the autocratic rule of late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, ethnic Russians feared Ukrainian nationalists.

WHAT DID PUTIN SAY?

“(German Chancellor Olaf Scholz) has just said that the people of his generation — and I certainly belong to that generation myself — find it difficult to imagine some war in Europe,” Putin said following talks with Scholz in Moscow on Nov. 15.

“But all of us were witnesses to the war in Europe that NATO unleashed against Yugoslavia,” Putin said. He recalled that it was a major military operation involving bombing strikes against a European capital, Belgrade.

“It did happen. Without any sanctions by the U.N. Security Council. It is a very sad example, but it is a hard fact,” Putin said.

He has argued that by intervening in Kosovo, the West created a precedent with longstanding consequences.

WHAT IS THE WEST’S TAKE ON THAT?

At the press conference with Putin, Scholz hit back at the Russian president’s arguments over NATO’s actions in Kosovo, saying this was done to prevent genocide, referring to the persecution of Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces.

Western leaders have repeatedly rejected Putin’s arguments, saying Kosovo was a unique case due to the large number of victims during the Balkan wars amid the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had insisted that Putin’s analogies between the West’s actions in Kosovo and Russia’s intervention in Crimea are “shameful.”

WHAT COULD BE THE CONSEQUENCES?

There are fears that the pro-Russian Serbian leadership could try to use the international attention focused on Ukraine to further destabilize its neighbors, particularly Bosnia where minority Serbs have been threatening to join Serbia.

European Union peacekeepers in Bosnia have announced the deployment of some 500 additional troops, citing “the deterioration of the security internationally (which) has the potential to spread instability” to the region.

Kosovo’s leadership fears Serbia could be encouraged by Russia to try to intervene in its former province to stop the alleged harassment of minority Serbs. Kosovo has asked NATO for a fast track to membership in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, something neither Serbia nor Russia would likely accept peacefully.

Kosovo officials have rejected Putin’s parallels between the NATO intervention in Kosovo and his invasion of Ukraine as “totally baseless and ridiculous.”

___

AP Balkan correspondent Dusan Stojanovic covered the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s and events in Ukraine in 2014.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=KOSOVO

Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Thesis on The Kosovo Crisis and the Crisis of Global Capitalism
(originally written May 1999, Bill Clinton set the stage for George W. to invade Afghanistan and Iraq for humanitarian purposes.)
http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/01/war-whats-it-good-for-profit.html

Kosovo's leftist opposition party gains landslide win
1 day ago

PRISTINA, Kosovo — The left-wing opposition leader who's poised to become Kosovo's next prime minister said Monday that he would push hard for his country to join the European Union, but also urged the bloc to provide an economic aid package to help smooth the path to membership for western Balkan states

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Albin Kurti's Self-Determination Movement Party, or Vetevendosje!, won a clear victory with 48% of the vote in Sunday's early election held amid the pandemic, an economic downturn and stalled negotiations with wartime foe Serbia. About 99% of the vote had been counted Monday.

The centre-right Democratic Party of Kosovo, or PDK, came a far second with 17% and the conservative governing Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, captured 13% of the vote.

Turnout was 47%, or 2.5% higher than the 2019 election, according to the Central Election Commission.

Kurti faces the challenges of reviving the poor nation's economy and reducing unemployment, as well as fighting the pandemic, organized crime and corruption.

He hopes to secure the required 61 votes in the 120-seat parliament to govern alone, or co-operate with the non-Serb minority lawmakers to form his Cabinet. He made it clear there would be no coalition with the PDK and LDK parties.

Kosovo’s Serb minority has 10 seats in parliament and 10 other seats belong to other minorities.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Monday, Kurti urged the European Union to apply what he called a mini-Marshal plan — alluding to the U.S. post-World War II reconstruction plan for Europe — for six western Balkan countries that are hoping to join the 27-nation bloc.

These countries are Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“The Western Balkans Six have EU as the most important partner. But on the other hand, history teaches us that also (the) Balkans (are) very important for Europe,” Kurti said.

Negotiations on normalizing ties with Serbia, which stalled again last year after talks brokered by the U.S. and the EU, did not figure high on the winning party's agenda. Kurti said forming a negotiating team for dialogue would not be a priority.

“To move on further, we need to establish clear principles of dialogue and (an) honest and serious approach by putting the demands of Kosovo and Serbia to each other,” he said.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi urged Kosovo to soon form the new parliament and government, elect the president and advance reforms, pledging continuous support from Brussels.

“Kosovo’s European path also goes through the comprehensive normalization of relations with Serbia,” their statement said.

Kosovo has signed a stabilization agreement with the EU, the first step towards membership.

Kurti said his government would apply for candidate status, and deplored that Brussels has still not allowed visa-free travel for Kosovars seeking to enter the EU.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a brutal 1998-1999 war between separatist ethnic Albanian rebels and Serb forces. The war ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign drove Serb troops out and a peacekeeping force moved in.

Most Western nations have recognized Kosovo, but Serbia and its allies Russia and China do not. Tensions over Kosovo remain a source of volatility in the Balkans.

Within two months of taking their seats, Kosovo’s lawmakers must elect the country’s president. If no candidate is elected after three rounds of voting, the country could be forced to hold another early parliamentary election.

Llazar Semini, The Associated Press

CLINTON'S HUMANITARIAN WAR
End of an era? 

Hague trials rock Kosovo's rebel-led politics

Issued on: 12/12/2020 - 

Former President Hashim Thaci (C) and other rebel chiefs were once feted for liberating Kosovo from Serbia in a 1990s war STRINGER AFP

Pristina (AFP)

After more than a decade at the helm, Kosovo's former guerillas may have finally met their match -- not at home but in The Hague, where they are on trial for war crimes.

It has been a long and hard fall from grace for former president Hashim Thaci and other ex-rebels who were once feted as heroes for liberating Kosovo from Serbia in a late 1990s war, with the help of NATO.

Yet if they were once associated with the joy of that victory, in recent years they have become the face of a political elite accused of corruption and clientelism that has clouded Kosovo's first decade of independence.

"They became so strong and accumulated so much wealth that it was impossible to overthrow them," said Ismet Sojeva, 66, a retired English teacher.

"Only The Hague could help bring them from the sky back down to earth".

Thaci, 52, and four others were summoned last month to the EU-backed court in the Netherlands on charges of murder, torture, persecution and other war crimes allegedly committed during the 1998-99 conflict with Serbia.

For many Kosovars, it's a complicated moment.

Most strongly defend the uprising that paved Kosovo's path to independence in 2008.

Yet the guerilla leaders themselves have long ago lost their shine among a public frustrated with enduring poverty and dysfunction.

"There is nothing they have not done to us people," said the owner of a tea shop in Pristina who declined to give his name.

"They almost destroyed the state."

- An opportunity -

With trials that could last up to eight years, political science professor Belul Beqaj believes the absence of Thaci and his cadres could open a new chapter for Kosovo politics.

Thaci's PDK party came to power in 2007 and stayed there until losing an election late last year.

"It is the beginning of the end of the era of the powerful military-political group that brought Kosovo to this state," Beqaj said.

There is a rare opportunity for a "new generation of politicians" to fill the void, adds Arben Hajrullahu, a professor of political sciences at the University of Pristina.

Yet the ex-rebels won't "leave soon and easily," he noted, with some key figures still in politics and many others holding sway in powerful state institutions.

The fragmented opposition would need to unite around a common cause, said the professor, a goal that has so far proved difficult in Kosovo's tumultuous political scene.

- War heroes -

Known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the ethnic Albanian rebels are deeply embedded in the national narrative, with scores of streets and monuments bearing their names and stories.

They first emerged as a separatist movement in the 1990s in response to growing oppression of the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo, then a Serbian province.

Thaci, a founding member, served as the group's political head, using a satellite phone to communicate with peace-brokering diplomats and foreign reporters.

Other prominent leaders on trial include the KLA's former spy chief Kadri Veseli, spokesman Jakup Krasniqi and chief of operations Rexhep Selimi.

After the KLA's clashes with Serbian troops intensified in 1998, the rag-tag army swelled from a few hundred members to thousands of recruits.

Victory arrived with NATO's intervention the following year, after 13,000 lives had been lost, mostly Kosovo Albanians.

The KLA was officially disbanded but its members continued to hold sway, consolidating their power through a series of attacks on political rivals.

- 'Corrupt payouts' -

Many top commanders like Thaci swapped their fatigues for politics and have circled the halls of power ever since.

Their levers of control were unveiled in 2011, when wiretapped phone conversations between then-PM Thaci and his associates showed a system of settling political appointments based on cronyism.

Thaci's clan is also accused of using their clout to scupper local investigations of KLA war crimes -- as well as attempts to obstruct the work of the tribunal in The Hague, which was set up in 2015.

"The suspects wield enormous influence over former KLA members and Kosovo in general," Hague prosecutors said in their request for arrest warrants this year.

Officials loyal to Thaci have "presided over corrupt government pay-outs" and job offers to silence potential witnesses, they alleged.

The trials may signal the end of crucial support from the West, which has long propped up Thaci and his allies.

The US has been a particularly robust ally, embracing Thaci at every turn, including when then-Vice President Joe Biden welcomed him to the White House as the "George Washington of Kosovo".

Critics say the West has backed the former rebels to prioritise stability in the region -- at the cost of rotting democratic institutions and a loss of public faith in politics.

Thaci and his men "looked only after settling and feeding themselves," said 22-year-old economy student Albulen Obrazhda, summing up the widespread disillusionment among youth, many of whom are eager to go abroad for better opportunities.

"They left us at the bottom."

© 2020 AFP

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=KOSOVO

Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Thesis on The Kosovo Crisis and the Crisis of Global Capitalism
(originally written May 1999, Bill Clinton set the stage for George W. to invade Afghanistan and Iraq for humanitarian purposes.)
http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/01/war-whats-it-good-for-profit.html

Serbia arrests main suspect in Kosovo police killing

Serbia arrested on Tuesday the suspected leader of a group of gunmen who killed a Kosovo police officer on September 24, the interior ministry said.

Issued on: 03/10/2023 -

This photograph taken on February 2, 2023, shows Milan Radoicic, vice president of the Srpska Lista party, during a special parliament session at the National Assembly building in Belgrade. © Andrej Isakovic, AFP

By:NEWS WIRES

Milan Radoicic was remanded in custody for 48 hours and handed over to the Belgrade public prosecutor's office, the ministry said in a statement, adding that police searched his flat and other properties. It did not say where he was arrested.

Radoicic, 45, is a businessman and former influential Kosovo Serb powerbroker.

He is suspected, along with "several unknown persons", of "unauthorised production, possession, carrying and trafficking of firearms and explosive substances as well as serious crimes against general safety", the prosecutors said.

Between January and the day of the attack, Radoicic was procuring the weapons from neighbouring Bosnia and then transporting and storing them at "unspecified locations" in Kosovo, they said in a statement.

During a hearing, Radoicic denied having committed the crimes he is suspected of, the statement said.

Meanwhile, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani told CNN that her country wanted "to have Radoicic and other terrorists handed over to the Republic of Kosovo so that real justice can be delivered".

Formerly vice-president of the Serbian List (Srpska Lista), the main political grouping of Kosovo Serbs, he resigned from his post last week.

He was questioned by Serbian police for the first time on Saturday.

A few days earlier, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic had stated that Radoicic was in "central Serbia" and available for questioning by the Serb authorities.
Years of distrust

Around 30 gunmen were involved in the hours-long shootout in the village of Banjska on September 24, after they ambushed a police patrol and later barricaded themselves in an Orthodox monastery near the northern border with Serbia.

The day after Kosovo's interior minister Xhelal Svecla accused Radoicic of leading the paramilitary commando.

Several days later, Radoicic himself said he had set up the armed group without the knowledge of Serbia.

Three other men have been arrested, suspected like Radoicic of "terrorism" by Kosovo prosecutors. Several dozen other suspects are believed to have fled into Serbia.

The killing of the officer brought years of distrust and bitterness to the surface -- as a war of words between Belgrade and Pristina, competing days of mourning, and calls for sanctions marred already fractious relations.

Kosovo's government has accused Belgrade of backing the entire operation, with Prime Minister Albin Kurti writing that the weapons and equipment used in the attack were "made by Serbian state-owned military arms producers".

The United States on Friday warned of "a large Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo" and called on "Serbia to withdraw those forces from the border".


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On Tuesday, the White House said that Serbia has begun withdrawing troops from the Kosovo border after having warned of an unprecedented build-up.

"We have seen them start to move those forces away and that's a good thing," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing.

It followed the announcement by Serbia Monday that its troop numbers were back to normal near the border with Kosovo, which accuses it of trying to annex the Serb-majority north.

Kosovo, a former province of Serbia which broke away and declared independence in 2008 -- a status Belgrade has refused to recognise -- has long seen strained relations between its ethnic Albanian majority and its Serb minority population.

(AFP)

WHEN TONY BLAIR BOMBED MONTENEGRO

Britain’s direct involvement in NATO raid that killed a Montenegrin civilian revealed for the first time.

PHIL MILLER
29 APRIL 2024

Blair welcomed Montenegro’s president Milo Djukanovic to Downing Street, a year after bombing his country. (Photo: PA via Alamy)

Montenegro opposed Serbia’s conduct in the Kosovo war of 1999 but was not spared from NATO bombing of Yugoslavia

Future head of MI6 gave clearance for “precision guided munitions” to be dropped on Montenegro’s capital

Royal Air Force has bombed eight different countries or territories since 1999

Twenty five years ago today NATO bombed Montenegro’s main airport.

It came amid airstrikes on Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, where Bill Clinton and Tony Blair waged a “humanitarian intervention” ostensibly to save ethnic Albanians from Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Yet a 61-year-old woman, Paska Juncaj, was killed in the strikes on Montenegro’s capital Podgorica, which lasted for 24 hours.

“Shrapnel hit her in the head while she was on the way to an air raid shelter with her son,” a hospital official told Reuters.

Three others were injured – one seriously – and two houses destroyed after a cluster bomb missed its target.

Bombing Montenegro at all was controversial, because the country was friendly to NATO.

And although it remained in Yugoslavia with Serbia, its president Milo Djukanovic was anti-Milosevic and took a neutral stance on Kosovo.

The country would eventually join NATO as a member in 2017.
Approving air strikes

The Atlantic alliance did not specify which of its members had taken part in the air strikes on Montenegro at the time.

Such secrecy would become a common feature of future NATO air wars, making it hard for victims to hold individual states responsible.

But a formerly classified document reveals that Britain was heavily involved in the attack on Montenegro.

Blair’s defence secretary, George Robertson, believed an attack on Podgorica’s airport was justified because “it was being used as a base for operations in and over Kosovo” by Yugoslav jets and helicopters.

John Sawers, Blair’s foreign affairs adviser and future head of MI6, gave clearance for “precision guided munitions” to be dropped at 4 points of the airfield, which had both civilian and military functions.

“The risk of casualties was low, for both civilian and military, and of collateral damage, medium”, Robertson’s private secretary Christopher Deverell noted in a memo to Downing Street marked, “Secret – Personal” and “Limited distribution”.

On the same day, a Cabinet Office meeting of legal advisors recorded “some concern about the acceptability of explanations that have been given by NATO and national spokesmen for attacks by non-UK NATO forces on certain targets which were on the face of it civilian in character.”

Sawers concluded: “I think it would be right to continue to plan on the assumption that the Prime Minister is almost certain to agree to targets where collateral damage is assessed as high but civilian casualties remain low.”

The file has since been declassified and was passed to the National Archives in London this December.

The MoD, NATO and Lord Robertson did not respond to requests for comment.
Culture of impunity

Dr Iain Overton from campaign group Action on Armed Violence told Declassified: “The lack of transparency displayed by the Ministry of Defence over its air strikes is long and concerning. They repeatedly deny civilian harm even in the face of detailed evidence. This revelation just adds to the proof that this culture of opacity and impunity prevails at the highest level.”

It is unclear whether Britain had any involvement in another NATO attack on Montenegro the following day – 30 April 1999 – when a bridge in the village of Murino was struck by ten missiles.

Six civilians died in that airstrike, including three children, sparking a long running campaign for justice.

British aircraft did participate in the wider bombing of Serbia and Kosovo. The 78-day campaign by NATO left around 500 civilians dead, according to Human Rights Watch.

Milosovic was later overthrown and died while on trial at The Hague. Blair’s ally in the conflict, Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader Hashem Thaci, is currently on trial for war crimes.

Over the next 25 years, Britain conducted airstrikes in eight countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

The list does not include military interventions like in Sierra Leone, as they did not feature aerial bombardments.

This month the RAF flew missions to protect Israel from Iranian drones.
‘My enemy’s enemy’

Britain’s military intervention in Kosovo produced mixed results. Although it allowed the return of ethnic Albanian refugees, it sparked reprisals against ethnic Serbs and empowered the KLA.

During the air war, Sawers pushed for Britain to deepen ties with the KLA, who were fighting Serb forces on the ground.

Sawers said Britain risked being “too sniffy” towards the KLA and that: “Our starting point in a conflict like this should be that your enemy’s enemy is your friend. We can sort out our differences later.”

Sawers also suggested a “minimalist interpretation” of the UN arms embargo. Blair replied: “I agree”. The KLA had easy access to small arms from their bases in Albania, where the collapse of pyramid schemes had left the state in tatters.

The file gives an important insight into the mindset of Sawers, who went on to run MI6 a decade on from the Kosovo war. In 2011 he oversaw a similar strategy in Libya where British intelligence sided with banned terrorist groups to topple Muammar Gaddafi.





Narco-state

In both cases, the Machiavellian policies have left a troubled legacy. Kosovo became virtually a narco-state on the edge of Europe, while Al Qaeda spin off groups like ISIS flourished in Libya’s power vacuum and spread terrorism to the UK.

A memo on the KLA written by a Whitehall staffer in 1999 noted it “does contain unsavoury elements…Links to drugs/crime.”

It added that the UK “do not support their goal (independence) or methods,” although Britain would be the first country to recognise Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008.

The MoD and Foreign Office warned: “Not all the Kosovo Albanians support the KLA. And the KLA is prone to feuding, and not incapable of atrocities itself. NATO cannot be seen to be in alliance with them…KLA rule might not be a liberal experience.”

Another document warned they were “not much better than the Serbs”.

Two months after Milosevic agreed to pull his forces out of Kosovo, leaving Thaci in control, the Independent reported “around 30 people a week are being killed in Kosovo as organised gangs take advantage of the UN’s failure to police the province.”

A NATO spokesman admitted there was a “law and order vacuum” with Western diplomats saying “gangs, some of which are suspected of having links to the Kosovo Liberation Army, are taking apartments, real estate, businesses, fuel supplies and cars from Kosovo Albanians and Serbs, who have little recourse to justice.”

RELATED

ON TRIAL FOR WAR CRIMES – TONY BLAIR’S FORMER ALLIES

A declassified British government file written shortly after the war said a senior KLA veteran was “up to his neck in smuggling and organised crime”. Kosovo was described in the media as a “smugglers’ paradise” and “the Colombia of Europe”, supplying up to 40% of heroin on the continent.

Sex trafficking and forced prostitution also rose in post-war Kosovo as gangs supplied NATO peacekeepers with “hundreds of women, many of them under-age girls”, Amnesty International warned in 2004.
Organised crime

Thaci became Kosovo’s first prime minister, despite NATO believing he was among the country’s “biggest fish” in organised crime.

An investigation by the Council of Europe accused Thaci of organ harvesting, with his inner circle allegedly murdering Serb captives to sell their kidneys on the black market.

It also cited reports from anti-narcotic agencies who identified Thaci as having “violent control over the trade in heroin”.

Kosovar gangs often have close familial links with the wider Albanian mafia. The National Crime Agency said in 2017 that “Albanian crime groups have established a high profile influence within UK organised crime, and have considerable control across the UK drug trafficking market, particularly cocaine.”

Drug deaths in Britain have now reached a 30-year high, with almost 5,000 fatalities in 2022.

After decades of impunity, Thaci is now on trial for 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the KLA.

The degree of corruption and intimidation is so high in Kosovo that his trial has to be held at a special court in The Hague.

Tougher rules on prison visits had to be implemented in December after prosecutors complained that visitors tried to compel “witnesses to withdraw or modify their testimony in a manner favorable” to the defendants.

Thaci denies all the charges against him.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phil Miller is Declassified UK's chief reporter. He is the author of Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes. Follow him on Twitter at @pmillerinfo

EU in Kosovo joins Pride Parade

 09.06.2022  

Pristina

 

Press and information team of the EU Office/EU Special Representative in Kosovo

The EU Ambassador in Kosovo, Tomas Szunyog, and the EU in Kosovo team, joined today in Pristina domestic institutions, human rights activists, and diplomatic corps, in a Pride Parade organised by several civil society organisations.

This year’s slogan of the Pride Week in Kosovo is: We are in the state, we are in the family, and it calls for the respect, acceptance, and inclusion of LGBTIQ persons in both public and private life.

“This is the sixth Pride organised in Kosovo. That sends a very positive message to the members of the LGBTIQ community in Kosovo and beyond. I am proud to be joining the parade alongside LGBTIQ community members, human rights activists, Kosovo institutions, and diplomatic corps,” said Szunyog.

 

"While the annual and uninterrupted holding of Pride Paredes in Kosovo clearly marks the commitment to the protection of human rights and diversity, we must not forget that members of the LGBTIQ community still face discrimination, both in Kosovo and the EU, and that all of us need to work together towards ensuring that LGBTI persons are treated equally.”

Ambassador Szunyog commended human rights activists and the Kosovo Office of Good Governance for all the good work done so far in promoting the rights of the LGBTIQ community and noted that the burden of this work cannot be carried by a select few, but needs to be done also by the opinion and decision-makers on all levels of government.

“I would like to emphasize that the discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited by the EU legislation and Kosovo laws, and this provides a sufficient space for us to help root it out,” said Szunyog.

The Pride Parade is part of the Pride Week activities. Contributing to the week’s programme, the Ambassador Szunyog will host today a reception for key NGOs and international actors contributing to the promotion and protection of rights of the LGBTIQ community in Kosovo.

Russia’s war in Ukraine finds echoes in the Balkans

Analysis by Ishaan Tharoor

Columnist

August 1, 2022 

A person walks past a partly vandalized mural depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Belgrade, Serbia, on June 2. (Andrej Isakovic/AFP/Getty Images)

A couple months after launching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin tried to justify his war by pointing to the Western Balkans. In a meeting with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, Putin pointed to the legacy of the NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, a bombing campaign that hit targets across what was then combined Serbia and Montenegro in a bid to halt Serbia’s onslaught against ethnic Kosovar Albanians fighting for autonomy. The brief war and subsequent peacekeeping operation led to the emergence of the independent nation of Kosovo.

The Western alliance’s actions then, Putin suggested, were no different than what his forces sought to do now in attempting to guarantee the independence of two pro-Kremlin separatist entities in the eastern Ukrainian region known as Donbas. “Very many states of the West recognized [Kosovo] as an independent state,” Putin told Guterres. “We did the same in respect of the republics of Donbas.”

There are plenty of reasons to scoff at this analogy, not least because Russia still does not recognize Kosovo’s independence and vociferously decried NATO’s war against their Serbian ally. NATO airstrikes led to Serbian civilian casualties, but they also helped stave off further rounds of violent ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and stabilize a crisis that had already seen thousands killed and hundreds of thousands more displaced. Putin’s invasion, meanwhile, is defined by the Kremlin’s genocidal rhetoric as well as garish reports of atrocities carried out by Russian troops. It has led to millions of Ukrainians fleeing their homes.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani sees an all-together different parallel. The NATO-enabled victory of Kosovo’s fighters over the regime of then-Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was part of a broader struggle for human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles. “Twenty-three years ago these values were at stake in Kosovo and beyond,” Osmani told me during a Thursday interview in Washington. “Twenty-three years on, it’s the same — these values are at stake in Ukraine.”

Russia’s campaign in Ukraine doesn’t deserve any patina of international legitimacy. It reflects simply, in Osmani’s view, the “sick, imperial tendencies” of the Russian president.

Putin makes his imperial pretensions clear

Osmani was in Washington this past week along with her country’s prime minister, Albin Kurti. They had meetings with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and inked a landmark investment deal with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government entity, which committed $237 million in funding for Kosovo’s energy infrastructure.

But in her conversation with Today’s WorldView, Osmani also warned of the wider perils facing her region, where Russian influence has historically played an outsize role.

“Putin’s aim is to expand the conflict in other parts of the world,” she said. “Since his aim has constantly been to destabilize Europe, we can expect that one of his targets might be the Western Balkans.”

Just this weekend, tensions flared between Kosovo and Serbia. Ethnic Serbs in northern municipalities in Kosovo blockaded roads and skirmished with detachments of police in response to Kosovo authorities’ decision to require vehicles that enter from Serbia to replace their license plates with Kosovo plates; the reverse is necessary for vehicles from Kosovo entering Serbia.

The bureaucratic dispute belied the far greater tensions simmering beneath. Top officials engaged in a war of words. Kurti accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic of instigating the violence. Vucic said the two parties had “never been in a more complex situation than today” but vowed Serbian victory regardless. The small NATO mission in Kosovo felt compelled to issue a statement, saying it was “prepared to intervene if stability is jeopardized.”

Also of immediate concern is the situation in Bosnia, whose complex political arrangement that cobbled together its ethnic Bosniak, Croat and Serb populations is looking wobblier than ever. Analysts believe Milorad Dodik, the leader of the semiautonomous ethnic Serb republic within the Bosnian federation, is pushing for a more clear-cut breakaway that could unleash new turmoil in the region. His efforts find close support in both Moscow and Belgrade.

Serbia is, after all, a historic Russian ally and, in Osmani’s words, “fertile ground” for Putin’s influence operations. While most of Europe’s leaders have pursued hostile measures against the Kremlin, Vucic has not. He refused to join the E.U. sanctions regime on Russia. He inked a lucrative gas deal with Moscow earlier this summer even as the rest of the continent is trying to wean itself off Russian energy exports. And as his own nationalist rule has led to an erosion of Serbian democracy and mounting concerns over press freedom, Vucic has also allowed Russian state propaganda outfits to remain operating in Serbia. They play a significant role in fueling polarization in the region.

Analysts point to a wider malaise. “In place of the vision of joining a peaceful, prosperous Europe, there is a growing sense of stagnation in which each country’s historical grievances and unfinished business fester as perennial features of election campaigns and potential conflict triggers,” noted a recent report from the International Crisis Group. “Leaders fan the flames with divisive rhetoric, trying to divert attention from sluggish economies, low living standards, corruption and nepotism.”

Pro-Putin European leaders reassert their power

Osmani views Vucic’s behavior as that of an autocrat who shouldn’t be appeased. Beyond Serbia’s territorial claims in Kosovo, she points to Belgrade’s hand in the instability provoked in Bosnia as well as the alleged pro-Kremlin effort to foment a coup in Montenegro in 2016 to stop its accession into NATO (The attempt failed and some of its alleged ringleaders have been jailed). Lingering visions of a “greater Serbia” animate Vucic’s movement.

On Sunday, a ruling party member of Serbia’s parliament even tweeted that Serbia may “also be forced to begin the denazification of the Balkans,” invoking the same spurious framing through which Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine. Vucic “looks at our countries as temporary countries and tries to deny our very existence,” Osmani said. It is “the very way Putin looks at Ukraine, Moldova and other countries. It is exactly the same strategy.”

Serbia, unlike Russia, is a candidate for European Union membership and occupies a more complicated position within Europe. But the new geopolitics triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has pushed Vucic into a corner.

“They have chosen their path,” Osmani said. “At this time, the Putin path and the European Union path are two different paths and have never been further apart and you can’t walk on both.

“When you have a neighbor that chooses to be on the wrong side of history at this very difficult time for Europe and beyond, it damages the rest of us as well.”

Kosovo, meanwhile, knows which direction it wants to go, but it has a complicated road ahead. It lacks U.N. recognition; Russia’s Security Council veto remains a fundamental impediment; and a considerable chunk of the international community has yet to acknowledge its status as a sovereign, independent nation — including five countries within the European Union.

Osmani believes that may change in the current environment, with the war in Ukraine also giving a boost to Kosovo’s “Euro-Atlantic integration.” She cited Finland and Sweden’s dramatic accession bids to NATO.

“As we all know, to be safe is to be in NATO,” Osmani said, urging the alliance’s member states to “start accelerated steps … toward welcoming also Kosovo and Bosnia into NATO.

Earlier this year, the European Union also fast-tracked the process to confer candidate status to Ukraine, a mark of the continent’s admiration for the Ukrainian struggle. Some critics in the Western Balkans feared this would only further delay their own nations’ stagnating membership bids.

But Osmani disagrees. “For way too long, we felt and heard the enlargement fatigue within the European Union,” she said. “The openness the European Union has shown toward Ukraine has turned the tide in a way that finally the E.U. sees the enlargement process as a geostrategic process rather than a bureaucratic one.”

And what should that strategic vision be?

“A Europe whole and free and at peace is impossible without the Western Balkans,” Osmani said.

War in Ukraine: What you need to know

The latest: The United Nations has expressed hope that the first grain shipments from blockaded Ukrainian ports could start Friday. However, the exact coordinates needed to ensure a safe passage for ships were still being negotiated on Thursday, U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said.

The fight: Russia’s recent operational pause, which analysts identified in recent weeks as an effort to regroup troops before doubling down on Ukraine’s south and east, appears to be ending. Russia appears set to resume ground offensives, with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu telling troops on Saturday to intensify attacks “in all operational sectors” of Ukraine.

The weapons: Ukraine is making use of weapons such as Javelin antitank missiles and Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, provided by the United States and other allies. Russia has used an array of weapons against Ukraine, some of which have drawn the attention and concern of analysts.

Photos: Post photographers have been on the ground from the very beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.

How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can help support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.

Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.

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By Ishaan Tharoor

Ishaan Tharoor is a columnist on the foreign desk of The Washington Post, where he authors the Today's WorldView newsletter and column. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.  Twitter