The Balkan Kettle: Russia's policy toward the Balkans

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify the policy orientations of Russia in the Balkans. The historical aspects of Russia's political and cultural ties with the Balkan region and Russia's policy towards the Balkans during the USSR period will feature. As the Balkans are an important factor in Russia's geopolitical game to retain influence in Europe, the author analyses Russia's contemporary policy in the Balkans, its interests and the measures taken to achieve its specific goals. It can be concluded that Russian involvement in some Balkan countries is exhausting the elements of a hybrid war. Two possible models of geopolitical behaviour in relation to Russia can be distinguished. The first is to continue trying to stay as far away from Russia, the second is to build effective mechanisms for socioeconomic cooperation. It can be implied that Russia will not hesitate to repeat the hybrid war scenario from Ukraine in order to maintain its political influence in the region. Only the EU returning to a consistent policy of enlargement involving the Balkan countries and the economic strengthening of the Member States from the Balkan region can weaken Russia's political influence in the region.

Analysis of strategic stakeholders in the Western Balkans

“…The derived results are in line with the conclusions of previous works aimed at defining the key switch-factors for the future unfolding of the situation in the Western Balkans (Binici, 2020;Jagiello, 2021). The added value of the current effort is comprised of the derivation of regional structural relations and their graphical representation, which may serve as starting point for subsequent research that has differentiating scope and direction.…”

The Great Powers’ Geopolitical Competition over the Balkans — The Influence of the Ukrainian Crisis

“…At the same time, Russia will continue to oppose EU and NATO enlargement in the Balkans in order to keep the region out of Western political and security structures for as long as possible, and will continue to destabilise the region by maintaining frozen conflicts and hybrid actions to oppose the pro-Western Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia, and the authorities of the Provisional Institutions in Pristina (Jagiello 2021).…”

The security dilemma in Russia’s new national security strategy: between militarism and being a geographical pivot

“…Do lado da Bósnia, o apoio político dado por Moscovo para a secessão da Republica Servia (Republika Srpska), declarada, há vários anos, pelo Presidente desta região, Milorad Dodik, pretende, em primeiro lugar, afastar a Bósnia da aproximação e integração na OTAN (Gotev, 2019) e na UE. Além disso, com a proximidade que procura ter junto dos líderes políticos bósnios, em particular do lado sérvio e croata da Presidência tripartida (que inclui ainda um representante bosníacos -muçulmanos) a Rússia pretende manter a sua influência (Jagiello, 2021), explorando as divisões étnicas para criar instabilidade (Mujanovic, 2017), numa região considerada de grande importância geoestratégica para UE (RFE, 2021) (Kamath, 2021).…”