At night, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic posted a cryptic message on his social media about the difficult days ahead for both the country and its people. No explanations or comments were given, only information that he had received data that directly threatened “the vital national interests of both Serbia and Republika Srpska”. Komersant ukrainskyi talked to experts to find out what Serbia can expect in the near future. Despite their different views on the country’s problems, the experts agreed on one thing: Russia is not out of the picture.
Kosovo is a stumbling block
In the coming days, the process of Kosovo’s admission to the Council of Europe will begin, which means that the global European community has finally set a course for the recognition of this republic, said Natalia Ishchenko, editor of the Balkan Observer portal and an expert on the South Caucasus.
“And Vucic (President of Serbia – ed.) and his team have always told their citizens that Kosovo is Serbia and worked to ensure that Kosovo is still considered part of Serbia at the international level. But with Kosovo’s admission to the Council of Europe, there may be a point of no return, because after that, at least symbolically, Kosovo will definitely be perceived as not part of Serbia,” she said,
– she said and stressed that this step would mean that the entire course of Serbia and Vucic over the past 10 years has failed.
The population in Serbia is morally mobilised, and the situation has been tense for a long time, so the people are really ready to fight for Kosovo, the expert stressed. Moreover, we are talking not only about the population of Serbia itself, but also of neighbouring countries, which is why Vucic mentioned Republika Srpska in his post.
“In his address, he spoke not only about Serbia, but also about Republika Srpska, a neighbouring country, Bosnia and Herzegovina. To give you an idea of the situation in Serbia and neighbouring countries, a year and a half ago, a survey was conducted to find out how many people were ready to fight for Kosovo, and the figure reached about a third of the population. These are not those who doubt, but those who are literally ready to take up arms,”
– said Natalia Ishchenko.
What does Putin have to do with it?
The expert said that Vucic was constantly “flirting” with groups of people who advocated a violent scenario for the development of the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, although on the other hand he spoke about a peaceful way to resolve the situation.
“Vucic’s problem is that if he does not meet the ‘forceful’ sentiments, an uprising will start against him. He is not the formal leader of these people, moreover, he is their enemy, they call him a traitor, they rally against him. And the leader of these people is Putin,”
– she said.
According to Natalia Ishchenko, during the last rallies in Belgrade on the anniversary of the NATO bombing, the opposition protested with the Russian flag and the letter “Zet”, and the rally ended near a Russian church:
“In this way, they showed that Russia is the force they are going to rely on in their actions.”
Is Vucic afraid of Putin?
russia still retains both economic and political influence in Serbia, said political analyst Oleg Sahakyan. There are also a number of Russian structures still present there
“That is, we can assume that these threats (reported by Vucic in his address – ed.) may indeed come from Moscow in order to undermine the situation and, accordingly, provoke a conflict point,”
– said the political scientist.
In his opinion, this “mysterious” wording about the “threat to national security” may indicate that Vucic is afraid to speak out loud about Russia, but he is referring to it.
“If it was a threat not from Russia, there would be specifics. But since it concerns the destabilisation of the region by Russia, they are not able to call a spade a spade, and therefore the threat is presented as somehow ephemeral. not to mention the fact that for Serbian elites this threat is not so much perceived as coming from Russia as from a geopolitical confrontation in which Serbia can become a field where Russia wants to destabilise the West and take revenge for its failure in Ukraine,” Saakyan said,
– sahakyan said.
What are your predictions?
According to Oleg Sahakyan, conflicts in Serbia may occur in parallel with the escalation in Moldova.
“May-June will obviously be months of increased activity of Russia in Moldova, where it will try to destabilise the situation. Also, let’s not forget that joint Russian-Belarusian exercises are scheduled for June, which will most likely include information and psychological operations to intimidate Ukraine with a possible offensive from the north from the territory of Belarus, as well as the Baltic countries and Poland, regarding the possibility of provocations,”
– the expert said.
Therefore, in his opinion, we can expect an increase in destabilisation in Serbia in May-June this year, starting with the May Day holidays, May 9, etc.
Author: Alyona Kaplina