ON November 2nd just under 200 paratroopers from Russia and Belarus started a ten-day military drill in Serbia. Meanwhile NATO troops were doing the same in neighbouring Montenegro. But the two opposing drills—the NATO one an exercise in dealing with disasters such as earthquakes, the other one, rather grandiosely dubbed the “Slavic Brotherhood”, slightly more provocative—are hardly the strangest of events to take place in the Western Balkans at the moment. The region, surrounded by European Union countries yet with longstanding links to Russia, increasingly appears to be the scene of worrying tensions between Russia and the West.
Rumours that Russia may be meddling in the region flared up last month. On October 16th Montenegro’s authorities said that on election day they had halted a Kremlin-backed coup, which aimed to stall the country’s almost completed accession to NATO. Police rounded up a group of 20 Serbian citizens whom Milo Djukanovic, the outgoing prime minister, said were working on behalf of Russia. Bratislav Dikic, the leader of the alleged coup, argued that he was innocent and that evidence had been planted on him. A...Continue reading
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