Belgrade forced to maintain friendship with Moscow

According to the editorial, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is forced to praise his hugely popular Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in public while trying to convince him to allow him some space on the most important Serbian foreign policy issue: recognition of Kosovo.

The Kremlin thinks that any final settlement of the Kosovo dispute would deal a major blow to Russia’s stature as a great power and to its clout in the Balkans.

Moscow has repeatedly taken a hard line on Kosovo, forcing Serbia to take a similarly uncompromising position and jeopardize its European Union membership, it added. A number of events over the past 18 months have made a solution to the Kosovo problem more possible than even the bravest optimists dared dream just a short time ago, including a possible date for Serbia’s EU membership, the editorial said.

Russia uses Kosovo as an important argument for the West’s failure to resolve conflicts unilaterally and any offer of a solution should now come from Washington, not from Belgrade, it added .

The editorial warned that Serbian leaders have put themselves into a very difficult, relationship with Moscow which can now veto any Kosovo peace proposal, thereby signing a political death sentence for the Serbian leadership which turned to Russia after the West recognized Kosovo’s independence.

“Concerned with presenting themselves as true patriots in the country, they didn’t really consider the cost of this friendship in the long run” and that created a cult of Russia and Putin in Serbia with the Russian president enjoying much higher popularity than any Serbian politician. Serbian leaders can’t let themselves be seen as less patriotic than the Kremlin and Moscow knows that,” it said.

“Putin’s popularity bothers Vucic, but he can’t give up on it just like that….A significant number of Serbs are convinced that Russia and Putin are far more reliable defenders of Serbian interests than their own president. So if Vucic dares recognize Kosovo without Russia’s approval, the Kremlin will easily be able to destroy him as a politician” by saying it will continue defending Serbia’s territorial integrity by not recognizing Kosovo, the editorial said.

Vucic understands the risk and he went to Moscow recently to gauge Russia’s reaction to an agreement on Kosovo but apparently left disappointed since Moscow has no reason to support an ultimate solution for Kosovo that would bring no benefits and could cause it to lose its influence in the region. Vucic is left with a choice between political suicide or a comfortable status quo, it said.