Bugajski says Russia is using Serbia as hostage to launch new war

While the White House is preoccupied with China's growing military power and its threats against US allies in the Far East, the Kremlin can overthrow other regions. Taking advantage of the White House distractions, it can help fuel new conflicts, and the Western Balkans remains a key target of opportunity. Recent dispute on Kosovo border- Serbia for the recognition of plates seems to be a test of more serious confrontations. Russian officials are encouraging President Aleksandar Vucic's government to transform Serbia into dominant power in the Western Balkans and thus increase Russia's influence with Washington and Brussels.”, Bugajski wrote among others in the analysis.

Gambling with Kosovo may be part of a broader Belgrade offensive with Russian guidelines to expand Serbia's regional position. According to Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin, all Serbs have the right to be united in one state. Like the Russians, Serbs are portrayed as multiple victims, which hostile powers are plotting to eliminate. Belgrade claims the right to protect Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia and Croatia.

The Biden administration has focused its foreign policy on opposing China's growth. A two-party consensus has emerged in Washington that China is America's most dangerous global opponent. And in order to stop confronting Beijing, the White House has sought relations with Serbia's sustainable and predictable “ ” with Russia. In reality, promoting unpredictableness and instability are Moscow's two fundamental strategies to undermine the West, and there is no reason to give up.

While the White House is preoccupied with China's growing military power and its threats against US allies in the Far East, the Kremlin can overthrow other regions. Taking advantage of the White House distractions, it can help fuel new conflicts, and the Western Balkans remains a key target of opportunity. Recent dispute on Kosovo border- Serbia for the recognition of plates seems to be a test of more serious confrontations. Russian officials are encouraging President Aleksandar Vucic's government to transform Serbia into the dominant power in the Western Balkans and thus boost Russia's influence with Washington and Brussels.

Belgrade organised a blockade along the border with Kosovo in September, put its troops on alert and threatened military intervention. Russian Ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko accompanied Serbia's Defence Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic to inspect Serb Army units. While Pristina sent a police delegation to implement the license plates' demands, Belgrade deployed military vehicles along the border and flew MiG-29 warplanes over that area to try to intimidate its neighbour.

In another show of power and a demonstration of Kremlin military commitments to Belgrade, Russian and Serbian air defence forces conducted joint exercises in mid-October, including MiG-29 warplanes. Moscow has also established a battery of short-range Pantsir-S antiaircraft systems in Serbia and said it is ready to sell other air defence systems in Belgrade. Since Serbia's neighbours do not possess any considerable air force, maneuvers were clearly aimed at as a signal to NATO that Russia will defend its key Balkan ally in the event of a regional war.

Propagandistic terrain is also being prepared for conflict. Belgrade and Moscow accuse the Kosovo government of threatening the rights and existence of the Serb minority. A similar account could be used against the Bosnian government to justify war. The Kremlin has repeatedly used such claims for the Russian population in its aggressive companies to revision in Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic states. Russia is now guiding its younger brother “” Serbia for the methodology of regional domination and territorial division.

In a scenario, Serbian intelligence operatives can provoke interethnic confrontations within Kosovo and capitalise on the violence that follows as the pretext for military intervention. That would put NATO's small force in Kosovo in a difficult position to confront the Serbian Army. Backing any Serbian encouragement and threatening to offer direct military assistance if NATO engages, Moscow would test Biden's determination to jeopardise a NATO-Russia war. Putin can count that Washington would prefer negotiations even if it means handing over Kosovo's northern municipalities under Belgrade, especially since Kosovo is not a NATO member and cannot rely on its collective defence commitments.

Kosovo's gambling may be part of a broader offensive by Belgrade with Russian guidelines to expand Belgrade's regional position. According to Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin, all Serbs have the right to be united in one state. Like the Russians, Serbs are portrayed as multiple victims, which hostile powers are plotting to eliminate. Belgrade claims the right to protect Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia and Croatia. In addition to the destabilisation of Kosovo, Belgrade's current focus is on deepening Bosnia's divisions and capacity of the Serbian entity to threaten with secession. It also co-operates with Serbian nationalists in Montenegro's coalition government to change Montenegro's independence and pro-Western policies.

While Vucic seeks glory as a co-ordinator of Serbian “ ”, Putin manipulates it to serve Russia's geopolitical goals. Vuciq is a permanent debt to Moscow for blocking Kosovo's entry into the United Nations and Serbia's economic dependence on Russia is expanding, especially in the field of energy, where it recently joined the new Russian natural gas link through Bulgaria and Turkey.

Serbia is also being treated as a Russian military base and a regional subversion centre. It has been armed with a variety of weapons in recent years, including fighter aircraft, tanks, helicopters and antiaircraft systems. “The Russian-Serbian humanitarian centre” near the Kosovo border serves as an object for intelligence collection and special operations for Moscow. Serbia is also developing close ties with Russia's Russian-controlled Kolektive Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), targeted as a multinational NATO counterpart.

Through a host of Kremlin-controlled tentacles, Serbia is becoming hostage in Russia's Balkans. Moscow is convinced that any move by Serbia towards NATO membership will not be tolerated and could result in the replacement of Vuciqi and his government. The Kremlin's support for different nationalist groups in Serbia, its broad impact on Serbia's information space, its intimate ties with the Serbian Orthodox Church, and its disincentive of spying on key institutions in Serbia aim to keep Vucinate in line and prevent it from getting closer to integration with Western institutions.

Serbia offers a valuable opportunity for Putin to fuel armed conflicts in a still unstable Balkan region. This would help enhance Russia's influence, draw Western attention from the conflicts Moscow builds in its neighbourhood, and mask the growing crackdown on instability within the Russian Federation. At one point, Vuciq may be lured or provoked to a military confrontation with one of Serbia's neighbours and later will turn to Moscow for help. With the EU without the wheel and the United States focused on China and other international crises, the Kremlin can calculate that the reduced risk of Western military intervention is worth taking.