Serbian President Alexander Vucic, in view of the failure of the demarcation of territory between the Serbs and Albanians, has nothing left but to seek approval and support from Russia.
On this on Saturday, October 20, Nikita Bondarev, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Relations of the RSUH, told NewsFront in an exclusive interview.
At the same time, he emphasizes that Vladimir Putin now also needs support from Orthodox peoples in connection with the deterioration of relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
“It is clear that the same situation that exists between Russia and Ukraine around the Ukrainian autocephaly is developing between Serbia and Montenegro. It is obvious that the Serbian Orthodox Church will be with Moscow on the Ukrainian autocephaly and our relations with Constantinople. But to what extent this position will be consistent, depends not on the TWS, but on Vucic. Therefore, for the first time in his relations with Moscow, at least a small, but some sort of trump card appeared. Therefore, Putin is interested in communicating with Vucic, and Vucic is interested in forming and strengthening these relations, ”says the expert.
However, he emphasizes that Belgrade’s Kosovo policy could lead to a better result if the Brussels format had not exhausted itself.
“Maybe it would be better for this story to continue, but the collapse of the latter with the delimitation of territory between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo shows that there is nothing more to“ catch ”along this line of the Brussels process, it is necessary to invent other ways of interaction between Serbs and Albanians, to attract others international brokers. We need to try to no longer create a situation like the last visit of Vucic to Kosovo, when Vucic in Brussels is told that there is a road map, Tachi is ready to sign everything, and having arrived in Kosovo, Vucic found out that Tachi is not ready to sign anything, ”Bondarev continues .
In his opinion, for real results, greater transparency of the process and more serious intermediaries are needed, which, for example, could be Russia, which, contrary to rational arguments, is unlikely to be included in the work, although this could give a new impetus to the background, in particular , the recent decision of Kosovo to create its own army.
“This [the formation of the Armed Forces] is a serious slap in the face of Belgrade. Now we will be waiting for a response from Vucic. He cannot pretend that there was nothing, he cannot restrict himself to just a statement, we are waiting for action, ”he stated.
The expert also spoke about the possible withdrawal of international peacekeepers, who largely influenced the creation of a “strange system of power in Kosovo”, where there are “formal leaders of Kosovo Albanians, and there are informal ties between them, dating back to the times when they were field commanders and stories with drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, weapons and human organs. ”
“Kosovo’s leaders are directly involved in this. This system was legitimized largely due to Western peacekeepers, who seemed to be there to facilitate the normalization process, but eventually contributed to something completely different – the emergence of an absolutely gangster, mafia and criminal quasi-state in Europe, ”the expert concluded.