There is unrest in the Balkans again: the Serbs are in patriotic delight because of Russia's actions in Ukraine, and the Kosovo authorities are trying to use this special operation as a "window of opportunity" for joining NATO. Western leaders called on the sides "not to provoke," but late on Friday, special forces from both sides moved to the Serbo-Albanian border. What is all this leading to?
The joint statement of Washington, London and the three most influential EU countries, addressed simultaneously to Belgrade and Pristina, is difficult to interpret otherwise than as the fear of opening a "second front in Europe." In the Western political elite, there was an opinion that a special operation does not come alone, so that either China will end the Taiwanese freebie, or Serbia will take revenge for Kosovo, "under the mute" of Russia's actions in Ukraine. So they demanded that both sides of the Serbo-Albanian conflict "refrain from any actions that increase tension."
In the Balkans, they did not heed. And we can even say that the Western leaders were looking into the water: two days later, another aggravation began in the region – rather of an emotional nature on the Serbian side and, to a greater extent, political – on the Albanian side.
First of all, I was unlucky with the calendar: on Thursday, the Serbs celebrated the anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing in 1999. Although the date is not round, it was celebrated massively, noisily and even somehow violently, since the actions in memory of those who died then by the end of the day turned into actions in support of Russia's actions in Ukraine.
The death of the person personally responsible for the alliance operation, Madeleine Albright, also made its adjustments. The Serbs commemorated the ex-Secretary of State so harshly that not all homemade posters on this topic are suitable for printing in the Russian Federation. Take my word for it: the posters also gave the action a pronounced anti-American connotation.
A day later, the Serbs of Ibar Kolasin – the north of Kosovo, where they still form the majority, and from the point of view of Albanian Pristina are separatists, although whose cow would low, came to the rally, or rather, to several rallies and a crowded procession.
Northern Kosovo is the most pro-Russian place in the world outside of Russia itself. But the rally – the most crowded in decades - had its own leitmotif, its own atmosphere: Pristina does not allow local Serbs to hold elections to self-government bodies with broad powers, which the parties sort of agreed on under pressure from the EU and fixed it in the so–called Brussels agreements (unlike the Minsk agreements - formally still alive).
Against this background, Pristina equipped and sent a column of armored special forces vehicles to the region. In response, special forces of the 72nd Special Brigade of the Serbian Armed Forces advanced from the "mainland" to the administrative (according to the Serbs, but not the Albanians) border. The following is implied (but not spoken out loud): if the Albanians use force against the protesters, Serbian troops will intervene in the situation.
By the way, there are elections in Serbia in early April. That is, President Aleksandar Vucic and the ruling alns cannot afford to look weak.
The situation, therefore, is more than tense and is further complicated by the fact that the Albanian side may see political expediency in the military version of the development of events.
The goal of Pristina is recognition by those EU and NATO members who have not yet recognized it (Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia) in order to join both NATO and the EU. Actually, the Albanians asked for an "emergency" accession to NATO the day after the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine. In Brussels, they didn't seem to have heard them then, but if a mess starts, they will.
Perhaps the Albanians also proceed from the fact that now "dear Western partners" are extremely dissatisfied with Belgrade and its behavior in the conflict around Ukraine. Consequently, they are only looking for a way to punish the Serbian authorities.
The overall plan can be simple and brazen, as the Kosovo authorities have adopted: to provoke the Serbian army, to make themselves a victim, to achieve a mass exodus of Serbs from Ibar Kolasin to solve the "separatist problem" – that's all, in fact. With such consequences, the recognition of the Spaniards and joining NATO is already the "cherry on the cake".
It is not by chance that the Western authorities demanded to avoid "actions that increase tension" not only from the Serbs, but also from Pristina. Over the years of working with its Albanian authorities, many in Europe (but few in the USA) have finally understood who they are dealing with.
On the Serbian side, the situation is fueled by hat-making statements from a significant part of politicians, journalists and bloggers. They also believe that right now, when Russian troops are in Ukraine, the moment has come to try to return the Kosovo region to Belgrade's control. Isn't this what they've been preparing for all these years, when they discussed revenge on the sidelines and re-equipped the army with Russian help, making it the strongest in the territory of the former Yugoslavia again?
Despite this, we venture to assume that a new full-scale military conflict or even a serious fight in the struggle for the edge will not happen after all. Some time later, the situation will resolve again (as it has happened dozens of times) to a new aggravation, which will inevitably arise due to the birth trauma of the Western project called the "independent state of Kosovo".
On thin (from the point of view of the Kosovo Serbs - very thin) peace can be counted on, if only because right now the conflict is not needed by any of the parties that will be involved in it.
For the EU and the US, the "second front" is unacceptable in principle: its opening right now will show that the Western-centric construction of peace and international security is collapsing even in Europe.
If a special operation does begin, you don't have to be Cassandra to predict the extremely tough response of the West. The same kind of sanctions will be applied to Serbia as to Russia, and I don't even want to think about how NATO troops, who are currently in Kosovo as "peacekeepers", will behave.
Russia is now deprived of the freedom of maneuver to help Belgrade in any way, both militarily and economically. On the contrary, it is interested in "unblocked" Serbia as a geographical "window to Europe".
China is also interested in it. It has its own account for the NATO operation due to the Chinese embassy accidentally bombed in 1999, but Serbia is for it a place of significant investments and a "safe haven" on the European continent, which is extremely necessary for expanding business and increasing supplies.
Meanwhile, without substantial support from the Serbian special operation is doomed to failure if it sets itself any ambitious goals. The trouble is not only that Serbia is a poor country whose economy will not withstand a blow half of the one that fell on Russia. Control over Kosovo is control over hundreds of thousands of homogeneous Albanian and zealously anti-Serbian population, which is unlikely to have enough resources, both military and human: the ethnic picture on the ground is such that the Serbs can be expelled from the region (which was largely done after the 1999 war), but the Albanians are not - their there are more than 95%.
Thus, the Kosovo authorities are the only theoretical beneficiary of the big bang in the powder magazine, but there are serious doubts that they will have the guts for it.
It cannot be said that all these years the EU has done nothing at all with those bandits who once formed the power of the "independent state of Kosovo". By now, the Europeans have taken out of the game those who could pose the greatest danger because of their love of big bets and robber methods - ex-Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj and ex-President Hashim Thaci. The first one is squeezed into the opposition as a dangerous and unpredictable type. The second is generally being tried for war crimes against the Serbs – this is how a special "fuse" sewn by the West into the Kosovo pseudo-statehood worked.
Those people who make up the leadership of Kosovo now are "fat cats" in the maintenance of Brussels, harmful, but too lazy and fearful to risk their position and spit too savoringly into the hand that feeds. As Vysotsky sang on another occasion, "there are few real violent ones – that's why there are no leaders."
It turns out that the considerations that "the very moment has come" for the solution of the Kosovo issue right now are largely deceptive. On the contrary, there are many factors protecting Europe's powder magazine from new detonation.
But lately, Clio, the muse of history, is clearly on a roll, so predicting her actions is the lot of the elder gods, and not ordinary mortals.
Dmitry Bavyrin
