As Russia’s affect grows within the Western Balkans and conflict rages in Ukraine, the leaders of Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina have mentioned becoming a member of NATO would assist protect regional safety.
Since February 24, when President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine citing Russia’s opposition to Ukraine’s potential NATO membership as a number one concern, fears have simmered that the disaster might unfold to the Western Balkans.
Russia’s alleged strikes within the Western Balkans have been documented through the years and embrace makes an attempt at facilitating coups in Montenegro and North Macedonia earlier than their NATO membership in 2017 and 2020, respectively.
For Bosnia and Kosovo, having skilled mass killings dedicated by Serb forces within the Nineteen Nineties beneath the administration of then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, each international locations have made it a strategic purpose to hitch the United States-led transatlantic navy alliance.
The pair stay the final non-NATO members within the area, apart from Serbia which views NATO as its “enemy”.
In 1999, NATO performed a 78-day conflict in opposition to Serbia with the acknowledged goal of stopping genocide in Kosovo in opposition to ethnic Albanians.
Bosnia is at the moment taking part within the Membership Motion Plan (MAP), seen as “the final step earlier than gaining [NATO] membership”, in response to Bosnia’s Defence Minister Sifet Podzic.
However as with Kyiv, Moscow has protested in opposition to Sarajevo’s NATO bid, regardless of the two,400km (1,500 miles) distance between them.
The Russian embassy in Sarajevo warned final 12 months that Russia “should react to this hostile act” if Bosnia takes steps in direction of membership.
Russian ambassador to Bosnia Igor Kalabukhov reiterated this message final month in an interview to Bosnian TV, utilizing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine for example.
“If [Bosnia] chooses to be a member of something, that’s its inner enterprise. However there’s one other factor, our response,” he mentioned. “We’ve got proven what we anticipate on the instance of Ukraine. If there are threats, we’ll react.”
For Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, Kalabukhov’s warning exhibits “that Russia has a harmful curiosity in our area”.
“They particularly have an curiosity in attacking Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to some extent additionally [NATO member] Montenegro,” Osmani instructed Al Jazeera.
Serbia, seen as a Russian proxy, might act with Moscow whereas feeling “emboldened by what is occurring within the continent of Europe proper now”, she mentioned.
“The affect that Russia has in Serbia isn’t downsizing, it’s really been rising all through the years.”
‘Indispensable’ membership
Three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Kosovo requested accelerated membership in NATO and demanded a everlasting US navy base on its territory.
Osmani has since requested US President Joe Biden to make use of Washington’s affect to assist the nation be part of.
However 4 NATO members – Spain, Slovakia, Greece and Romania – are but to recognise Kosovo’s 2008 independence from Serbia, complicating its bid.
Osmani mentioned Kosovo first goals to hitch mechanisms such because the Partnership for Peace, a NATO programme that encourages cooperation with non-member international locations.
“We’re already speaking to [NATO] members to guarantee that everybody understands how membership is changing into indispensable, particularly in mild of occasions in Ukraine,” Osmani mentioned, stressing political dialogue.
Podzic hopes that when the Ukraine conflict ends, geopolitical relations will change and the significance of regional safety will improve, presumably resulting in fast-tracking Bosnia’s NATO membership.
“But when we wait to fulfil all standards, sadly, it is going to take some time [to gain membership], as a result of we aren’t investing in safety companies, in navy capacities. We are going to want numerous time to modernise our military, to purchase fashionable weapons,” Podzic mentioned.
Bosnia stopped investing in its navy since about 2010 resulting from an absence of inner cohesion and obstacles stemming from the 1995 Dayton peace settlement, which was created with the purpose of merely stopping the conflict, he mentioned.
Both means, Russia “received’t be deciding on this”, Podzic mentioned. “[Bosnians] will resolve about our path within the navy alliance.”
In the meantime, neighbouring Serbia’s defence funds final 12 months nearly doubled from 2018 to about $1.5bn.
Serbia
Serbia, lengthy thought-about by Brussels as a frontrunner for European Union membership, is the one nation in Europe, apart from Belarus, that has not issued financial sanctions in opposition to Russia.
As an alternative, the federal government and the opposition have proven solidarity with Putin.
As EU international locations cancelled flights to Russia, Air Serbia doubled its flights between Belgrade and Moscow final month, solely to cancel the choice a day later following backlash.
Moscow and Belgrade have frequently proven shut ties.
On February 19, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a populist who this month received a landslide election victory, mentioned on Tanjug state TV that he would meet Russia’s prime safety official Nikolai Patrushev in Belgrade to debate Moscow’s claims that “mercenaries” from Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia had been being despatched to struggle on the Ukrainian facet.
Officers from Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia had rejected the claims made by Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov.
However later that month, with new sanctions in place and with international locations in Europe banning Russian planes from its airspace, Patrushev was reportedly unable to land in Belgrade.
Osmani mentioned the declare of pro-Ukrainian mercenaries is “one other a part of their propaganda”.
“Regardless of the info, some within the EU proceed to push for an lively appeasement coverage in direction of Vucic, which I consider is a giant mistake,” Osmani mentioned.
“We’re nonetheless ready, the individuals of Kosovo, to listen to clear messages from the worldwide neighborhood in direction of Serbia that they can’t sit on two chairs without delay, particularly when these two chairs are very a lot distant from each other. Sadly, we haven’t heard that clear language but.”
She added that as a substitute of encouraging international locations which might be totally aligned with the EU and NATO and their values, leaders equivalent to Vucic and the Bosnian Serb secessionist chief Milorad Dodik, “who really do all the pieces that’s the precise reverse of EU values”, are inspired.