BALKANS UNDER PUTIN'S STRIKE Western Mistakes Returned Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to a Pre-War State

By: Rasim Belko

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The Balkan political volcano is starting to erupt. Warnings and fears of Western and regional experts who timely notice anomalies are beginning to materialize. Europe is no longer afraid only of political disagreements and disputes in the Balkans, a powder keg that has threatened the peace of the Old Continent for decades.

It started in Kosovo, when the Belgrade authorities saw the young Kosovars as cannon fodder for flexing muscles. It has started again in Kosovo these days, and old fears send shivers down the spine of everyone who went through the agony of the nineties in this region.

And again, the Belgrade regime, disciples of Milošević's school, are flexing their muscles to take whatever they can from independent Kosovo. However, it did not all start with barricades, nor will it likely end with the trucks donated by the EU to aggressive Kosovo Serbs, which they then used to block roads in Zubin Potok and surrounding areas.

Western policy (EU, USA, Great Britain) has caused tensions from Pristina, through Sarajevo, to Podgorica, with its indecisive actions. They will never admit it, but it is precisely their actions that have enabled Aleksandar Vučić to behave like a regional sheriff and dictate the rules of the game.

Dozens of analytical texts have been published about the West's wrong approach, through which Kosovo was tried to be forced into the Community of Serb Municipalities to appease Belgrade. Aware of this danger, Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti, with his experience of Serbian goodwill from his time in prison, has not budged an inch from his set goal of Kosovo being completely independent of Serbia. Because, looking at BiH, he saw what would happen to him if he handed over the forcibly expanded territory of Kosovo, which was expanded and settled by Serbia, to some new 'Dodik'. This is an introduction to long-term crises with far-reaching consequences.

The West does not want to admit its fatal mistake with Bosnia and Herzegovina, but continues to stumble into new ones. Kurti is tougher than they imagined, so they are trying to force him into submission by threatening a labile opposition, ready to gain power by supporting the formation of the CSM.

The malicious would say it's identical to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here too, the West has been silent for years, allowing the political aggression of Belgrade and Zagreb, which consequently keeps Bosnia and Herzegovina in permanent crises that are a notch closer to conflict than the one in Kosovo. Because, in Bosnia and Herzegovina too, an opposition group has been formed based on populism, whose politics are based on promises that the ears of Western diplomats want to hear. They promise compromises, reconciliation policies in which the victim will extend a hand to the executioner and apologize for being a victim, policies of fighting corruption, and foreigners like to hear this and easily overlook all the corrupt individuals in that opposition. Foreigners also like to overlook those they have punished themselves. It is important to reach some kind of compromise, even a rotten one.

Just as they did in Montenegro with forces that, about six years ago, attempted a coup d'état on the orders and with the credit cards of Putin's Russia and Vučić's Serbia. Montenegro has not recovered since those days, and the political crisis in the country culminated when the pro-Russian SOC, Vučić, and ethnic Serb politicians from Montenegro united on one side, and Western diplomacy on the other.

In an attempt to overthrow Milo Đukanović, a man who, without firing a shot, pulled a NATO member out of the Serbian-Russian province, they are now removing him on charges of crime and corruption that no one has yet proven against him. And all this so that democratic forces from the 'litija' can return Montenegro to the European path. However, they soon realized that this was a path to yet another open hotbed in the Balkans, and hotbeds are easily created and difficult to extinguish on this peninsula.

And so we have reached a situation where Kurti is bothersome in Kosovo, Bakir Izetbegović in BiH, and Milo Đukanović in Montenegro. All three because they are quite openly and aggressively opposing Serbian policy with a Kremlin stamp.

I asked American professor Daniel Server back at the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine whether the EU, USA, and Great Britain had waited too long to resolve Balkan issues. Server replied in February 2022: "They waited too long, but there is still time. What was missing was political will. The invasion of Ukraine could help the US, Great Britain, and the EU find political will.".

It seems that political will has been found, but directed in the wrong direction. Because the West has begun to remove politicians who, through their actions, have not separated their countries from the Euro-Atlantic path. Instead, political projects with dubious goals and capacities have been installed in power.

Today, these political projects are actually generators of crises, driven by political ideas that are returning the entire region to the time when Milošević was settling scores with his political enemies.

Milošević is no more, but each of the mentioned countries has received a mini reincarnation of Milošević, who, on the wings of the West, are trying to demolish progressive political forces and, on the waves of Europeanism, return absolute power over the Balkans to Belgrade, and consequently to Serbia.

The attempt to democratize three countries with forces that have a fascist legacy and minor political experience could ignite the Balkans, and in that case, the stench will surely suffocate many Europeans as well.

Because, the will of that West was clearly directed in the wrong direction. And it is known how everyone who drives on the wrong side fares – on the highway or in history, IT'S ALL THE SAME!