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Fattening The Pig: Russia’s Sphere Of Privileged Interests And The Powder Keg Of Europe

18 May 2022
By Stjepan Bosnjak
President Putin shaking hands with President Vučić  of Serbia 2019.
Source: Presidential Press and Information Office.
https://bit.ly/3wlk6v6

What is Russia hoping to gain from stoking instability in the Balkans?  For such a small geographic region, any change in the Balkan’s political makeup can have global implications.

The Balkans have traditionally been known as the “powder keg of Europe.” This is due to its geostrategic location between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, and its geopolitical history on the border of major competing cultural or political powers. The region has sat at the crossroads of the western Roman and Byzantine Empires, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Christian and Ottoman-Muslim Europe, and capitalism and communism. In the last thirty years, it has served as the border of the liberal West. Currently, the Balkans is one of the last regions of Europe that has not been fully integrated into Western structures and architectures. As a result, events in the region have wider global implications than the power derived from the region’s relative population and economic size would seem to suggest.

Russia, having had a presence in the region since Ottoman times, understands this. However, it is not the only outside player currently vying for power in the Balkans. China, Turkey, the US, the EU, and even the Gulf States are all competing for influence in a very crowded, congested, and relatively small field. As a result, despite being entrenched the region, Russia cannot assert itself as the preeminent power, even if it wanted to.

But just because Russia cannot dominate the Balkans does not mean that it cannot use its influence to disrupt and frustrate the interests of the other powers, while serving its own. Russia has a range of capabilities in its toolbox, spanning hard military power, sharp diplomatic power, and soft cultural power, which have an amplified effect and bearing in the region due to a shared history and cultural similarities between Russia and many states in the Balkans.

Russia uses these capabilities in several ways. It has been trying to slow down NATO and EU enlargement. It allegedly attempted a coup in Montenegro to prevent it from joining NATO, for example. In Bosnia, Russia has been building relationships with both Croatian and Serbian nationalist elements. For years, high-level Russian officials have regularly visited Republika Srpska, where elected representatives openly push for secession.  At the same time, the Russians have been saying they sympathise with Bosnian-Croatians, who have been attempting to carve their own entity out of the country, and the discrimination they face. If both Bosnian-Croatian and Bosnian-Serb entities declared independence or merged with Croatia and Serbia, respectively, the situation could easily spiral into bloodshed. Croatia, an EU and NATO member, would be pitted against Bosnia and Serbia. Much like 1914 and WWI, a small conflict could escalate and draw in more outside powers, however reluctantly, creating even wider instability and destruction.

Prior to 2010, Russia had quietly acquiesced to EU enlargement in the region, seeing no harm in Russian-friendly states such as Bulgaria and Romania entering Western institutions. Russia saw the potential of having a conduit to influence within these institutions, gather intelligence, and to white ant. Fomenting instability in NATO and EU member states would cause much more damage to Western interests than in states outside the fold.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia has a strong say in the international response to any conflict that may flare up in the region, and it is notionally involved in the running of Kosovo, due to the latter’s official status as a UN ward. Recognised by around 50 percent of the nations in the UN, including Australia, yet not the UN itself, Kosovo occupies international no man’s land. The way Kosovo declared independence from Serbia and its subsequent recognition by half the international community has long been cited by Russia as a precedent for the Crimea and Donbas regions breaking with Kyiv, as well as South Ossetia and Abkhazia breaking with Tbilisi.

For these reasons Russia knows that the West is willing to negotiate with Russia. While important, the Balkans are not within Russia’s “sphere of privileged interests” and can be sacrificed. Russia knows seeking pre-eminence in the Balkans is a losing battle. Popular support in each state for joining the EU is rising, with some surveys showing a majority already do. And Russia’s economic interests in the region are negligible. The above mentioned examples are all cases where Russia has quietly been spending the last few years of the geopolitical equivalent of “pump and dump,” fattening up the pig before taking it to market. Russia is creating bargaining chips it can bring to the negotiating table with the other major powers.

There are rumours Russia may be willing to recognise Kosovo. If the major powers can negotiate with Russia to not use its veto and allow Kosovo to join the UN, there could be some sort of for a quid pro quo exchange recognition of Russian control of Crimea, as well as the two Donbas and two South Caucasus statelets. While this would damage its relationship with Serbia, Russia may be able to placate them through other ways.

Depending on how it proceeds in the Balkans, Russia will still retain power through its considerable goodwill and contacts generated from its historical and cultural ties. If Russia does not burn too many bridges, it will have more friendly states inside the EU and NATO camps that it may be able to use as a Trojan Horse should the need ever arrive.

Stjepan Bosnjak holds a Master of Arts (Research) from Victoria University.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.