Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, whose country is one of Russia’s closest allies in Europe, recently made a surprisingly strong statement in support for Ukraine. “We said from the beginning that we cannot support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he said, adding that “for us, Crimea is Ukraine, Donbass is Ukraine – it will stay that way.” Many Western experts quickly concluded that Serbia had seen what was happening and was severing ties with Russia, amid a failed war in Ukraine and its increasingly isolated pariah status. Nobody likes a loser.
But this Western hope could not be more mistaken. Vucic’s statement is just a continuation of Belgrade’s balancing strategy between Russia and the West. To maintain relationships with everyone, he adjusts his relationships according to his interests. In this case, Vucic’s apparent pivot was over Kosovo’s right to independence, which Belgrade strongly rejects. At the same time, the fact remains that an isolated and weakened Russia that loses Ukraine would be a bad ally for Serbia. The West would do well to remind Serbs of this fundamental geopolitical shift.
The logic behind Vucic’s statement is simple: according to Serbia, its territorial integrity was illegally violated by Kosovo’s 2008 unilateral declaration of independence, which is recognized by about half of the world’s countries. By this logic, defending Ukraine’s right to control all of its territory is another way of saying that Serbia should do the same. For Vucic, Crimea, Donbass and Kosovo are parallel cases of dismemberment.
Vucic has made similar statements in the past. In 2019, he explain that “Belgrade cannot yet formally recognize Crimea as a territory of Russia, as this would jeopardize the resolution of the question of the status of Kosovo.” Serbia also refused to recognize the results of Russian pseudo-referendums in the occupied Ukrainian parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. In his rejection of the September 2022 referendum results, Vucic cited the United Nations Charter and note that Serbia “supports the territorial integrity of all UN member states, including also the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Kosovo defines the limit of Serbian support for Russia. In fact, Serbia vote last March in favor of the UN resolution condemning Russian aggression, Serbia’s permanent representative to the UN, Nemanja Stevanovic, stressing that his country was “determined to respect the principles of territorial integrity and the political independence of States. Serbia’s UN vote was part of Vucic’s pragmatic balancing act. Given that the resolution did not mention sanctions and was therefore only symbolic, Serbia’s vote represented a low-stakes opportunity to give it a slight boost in the eyes of Western leaders without substantially compromising relations. Belgrade with Moscow.
Serbia also sees the UN resolution as a mechanism to condemn NATO’s 1999 intervention in what then remained of the former Yugoslavia. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Stevanovic spoke about what he sees as a double standard applying to Ukraine and Serbia. “This is not the first war, nor the first conflict, nor the first attack on the territory of modern Europe,” asserting that “just as Russia violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine, Western powers attacked Serbia, which did not attack anyone, violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine.” its territorial integrity, then… recognized Kosovo.
For Vucic, the consequences of the war in Ukraine on the Kosovo issue are more important than the risk of losing part of the trust of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin, for its part, sees Kosovo’s independence as a precedent for annexation – and a way of denouncing Western hypocrisy. In September 2022, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya referred in Kosovo to justify the annexation of Ukrainian territories by Russia, which he presented as a “right to self-determination”. Russia is wrong to view Kosovo as a precedent for a variety of reasons, including because the International Court of Justice considers Kosovo a sui generis case, meaning it presents a unique set of circumstances and cannot serve as a model for other cases.
Lest anyone entertain hopes of an imminent split between Belgrade and Moscow: although Serbia opposes Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory, it remains a staunch ally of Russia. Russian television channels RT and Sputnik broadcast propaganda through their Serbian subsidiaries, and Vucic allows his domestic propaganda machine to repeat much of the Kremlin’s position on Ukraine. Serbian media reflect a wide range of pro-Kremlin messages, from depictions of Ukrainians as Nazis to false claims that Ukraine attack Russia first.
In recent months, tensions between Serbia and Kosovo have increased, following Kosovo legislation requiring Kosovo Serbs to register Kosovar license plates and documents. At the end of December 2022, Serbia put its troops on alert and Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic describe the two countries as “on the verge of armed conflict”. Throughout this impasse, Belgrade has repeatedly said thanked Russia for its “support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia” and stressed that this is the reason why Serbia denied support economic sanctions against Russia.
The most interesting lesson is that the partnership between Belgrade and Moscow is not due to a deep historical connection or Slavic brotherhood, as some claim, but is rather strategic and transactional. They only support each other to the extent that it serves their respective goals.
Serbia’s position is complicated by the fact that it continues rests heavily on Russia for military equipment and training, while Russia exercises strong regional influence stemming from its ties to the Serbian Orthodox Church and extensive Russian information operations. Vucic risks serious consequences if he becomes truly angry with Russia.
Indeed, Vucic’s recent statements against Russia’s actions in Ukraine have fueled a backlash against him. Acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin wrote on Telegram that he is “sure Vucic is under pressure” to side with the West. Along the same lines, a deputy of the Russian Duma from Crimea, Mikhail Sheremet, claims Vucic faces “colossal pressure from Western countries”. Russian senator from Crimea Ekaterina Altabaeva sharply criticized Vucic: deploring how “it is very bitter when today’s realities force a person to abandon historical traditions.” She asserted that “historical ties between Serbia and Russia… will prevail over all political and opportunistic considerations.”
That remains to be seen. In the meantime, Ukraine and the West must not be fooled by Vucic’s rhetoric. He is a rational actor whose main goal is to stay in power. But given growing tensions between Vucic and the Kremlin, the West has an opportunity to exploit their differences to weaken the two countries’ regional influence.
On the one hand, the West should launch an information offensive against Putin on social networks and other media platforms in the Balkans, emphasizing above all Russia’s unreliability as an ally.
In its information operations, the West can take advantage of Vucic’s current openness toward the West and involve him in efforts to weaken Russia’s regional influence. In a phone call this week between Vucic and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, both reaffirmed Serbia’s willingness to cooperate with the European Union and underlined Vucic’s commitment to regional stability and peace. Since Vucic completely controls his country’s media, he can easily distribute information as he sees fit. This means that Vucic has the power to change the tone of Serbian public discourse to support the normalization of relations with Kosovo without fear of reprisals from Serbian nationalist groups. In this case, Vucic’s consolidated power could actually be an asset in the mission to undermine and deter Russia in the Balkans.
Western information operations are also expected to target far-right Serbian nationalists. Their support for Putin comes from affirming his belief that Kosovo is the heart of the Serbian homeland. The West can use strategic messages to show these people that the relationship between Serbia and Russia is purely transactional and that Russian brotherhood is nothing more than a myth.
The truth is that Russia is using Kosovo for its own strategic purposes. Information operations could remind nationalists that Russia’s support for Serbia is fragile. Russia supported Western sanctions against Serbia in the 1990s and did not assist Serbia militarily during NATO intervention in 1999. Although Russia initially joined the peacekeeping mission led by NATO in Kosovo, it abandoned it in 2003, throwing its so-called Slavic brothers under the bus.
Perhaps most importantly, the West should continually highlight Russia’s international isolation, its military failures in Ukraine, and its much diminished power as an ally. Russia is rapidly losing influence on its periphery – whether in Central Asia, the Caucasus or the Balkans – and it is in no position to help Serbia, either militarily or economically. Exhibit A is Armenia, a nominal ally of Russia left helpless by its big brother after Turkey-backed Azerbaijan occupied parts of its territory last year. Make sure all Serbs know not to hitch their wagon to a fading and unreliable star.
