One Year After Banjska: The West’s Role in Serbia’s Balkan Escalation
One Year After Banjska: The West’s Role in Serbia’s Balkan Escalation
One year after the Banjska attacks, Serbia's aggression and Western appeasement continue to destabilise Kosovo, raising questions about regional security and international accountability.
One year after Serbia’s brazen attempt to annex northern Kosovo in a Kremlin-inspired operation, the situation in the Western Balkans has deteriorated further. The Serbian state, emboldened by Western appeasement and free from accountability, has openly embraced the toxic influence of Russia, China, and Iran, dragging the region deeper into instability. As of September 24, 2024, Serbia now hosts a Russian PMC Wagner Recruitment Cultural Centre in Belgrade, facilitating the recruitment of young Serbs to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, a country that the West claims to support in its struggle against Russian aggression. This is no rogue outpost: it is a reflection of Serbia’s deepening alliance with the Kremlin, a relationship cultivated while Western powers look the other way.
VIDEO: U.S. Sanctioned Serbia's Deputy PM Vulin to Putin: "Serbia will never join NATO or impose sanctions on Russia. We have never been and will never be anti-Russian. Serbia is not just a strategic partner but an ally of Russia."
It gets worse. Serbia is not just a silent partner to Russia’s war machine; it is an active participant. Belgrade continues to purchase Russian, Chinese, and Iranian weapons, and it has become a hub for Russian espionage through the infamous "Russian Humanitarian Centre" in Nis, a front for Moscow’s intelligence operations in Europe. Serbia has opened its doors to Russian oligarchs, granting them citizenship, allowing them to move their wealth into Serbia, and using the country as a gateway to access European markets despite sanctions. Meanwhile, Serbian authorities have cracked down on Russian dissidents who fled Putin’s regime, delivering a chilling message to anyone who dares oppose the Kremlin: Serbia, an EU candidate country is not a safe haven.
VIDEO: In a 37-second video (below) posted by Wang Lutong, China’s Director General for European Affairs, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic briefly affirms that Taiwan is part of China, leaving any action to Beijing. Vucic, once a key figure in Slobodan Milosevic's regime responsible for 250,000 deaths in the Balkan wars, now leads Serbia, a country officially aligned with Moscow through a 2022 agreement, while paradoxically seeking EU membership.
Serbia’s foreign policy stands in direct defiance of the democratic values it once claimed to aspire to. It aligns itself with Russia, Belarus, Iran, and China, including their hostile stance toward Taiwan. Serbia, under the guise of neutrality, has been sending weapons to Russia to sustain Putin’s war in Ukraine, undermining the very sanctions that the U.S. and EU imposed to cripple Russia’s military capabilities.
The sheer hypocrisy of Western governments, particularly the United States, in their dealings with Serbia is staggering. Washington, which has long portrayed itself as the guardian of democracy, continues to ignore Serbia’s deepening ties with authoritarian regimes. Serbia has signed strategic energy agreements with Berlin and Washington and secured a military contract with France for 12 Rafale fighter jets, a NATO technology now placed in the hands of Putin’s closest proxy in the Western Balkans. It is an astonishing betrayal of NATO’s principles, arming a country that openly stands with Russia and flaunts its allegiance to autocratic regimes.
Serbia’s duplicity was further underscored when it formally withdrew from all verbally agreed provisions of the Ohrid Agreements after a letter sent by former Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to EU envoys. These agreements were supposed to offer a roadmap for peace and normalisation with Kosovo, but Belgrade has shown no intention of honouring them. Instead, Serbia continues its aggressive lobbying against Kosovo on the international stage, keeping its claim over Kosovo enshrined in its constitution and using the threat of war as a constant tool of intimidation.
Why has the West allowed this to happen? Why have the United States and the European Union abandoned their principles and turned a blind eye to Serbia’s increasingly dangerous behaviour? The answer lies in a tragic miscalculation: the belief that Serbia can be coaxed away from Russia’s orbit through appeasement. But this is not just a failure of diplomacy, it is an abject surrender of moral clarity.
For over a year now, Kosovo has faced relentless pressure from the West to accommodate Serbia’s demands, even as Belgrade arms itself with Russian and Chinese weapons, harbours Putin’s oligarchs, and wages an undeclared war against Kosovo’s sovereignty. The United States, which once stood with Kosovo in its darkest hour, now bullies the small nation into submission, threatening to isolate its democratically elected government unless it bends to Serbia’s will. Meanwhile, Serbia’s alignment with Moscow grows stronger, unchallenged by the very powers that claim to defend democracy and human rights in Europe.
Today, Serbia is not only a proxy for Putin in the Western Balkans; it is an enabler of Russian imperialism. It plays a key role in destabilising both the region and Ukraine by feeding weapons into Putin’s war machine and recruiting its youth to fight in a conflict that undermines the entire European security framework. And yet, the West continues to engage in diplomatic theater, pretending that Serbia is a neutral actor or, worse, a potential ally.
The cost of this appeasement will be steep. By continuing to coddle Serbia, the United States and Europe are not just betraying Kosovo, they are undermining their own geopolitical interests. Serbia’s destabilisation of the Balkans serves Russia’s long-term strategy to weaken NATO’s influence in the region. The Serbian government’s militarisation, its embrace of Kremlin-backed militias, and its open defiance of international agreements are all clear indicators of its true loyalties. This is not a country that can be won over through diplomacy, it is a country that has made its choice, and that choice is to stand with autocrats, not democrats.
As Serbia cracks down on Russian dissidents and gives safe harbour to Putin’s oligarchs, it sends a clear message to the world: the rule of law is meaningless, and alliances with tyrants will be rewarded. The West, through its inaction, is complicit in this degradation of democracy. Each concession made to Belgrade, each instance of silence in the face of Serbian aggression, only emboldens Vucic’s regime to push further, whether in Kosovo or Ukraine. And with each failure to act, the U.S. and EU lose credibility as defenders of freedom.
Kosovo, meanwhile, continues to face mounting pressure from both the U.S. and EU to retreat. Ambassador Jeffrey Hovenier, in a move that would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic, has openly criticised Kosovo for defending its sovereignty while refusing to hold Serbia accountable for its escalating provocations. Even now, Serbia’s military buildup along the border is seen as a footnote, an afterthought, in the diplomatic game that seeks to pacify Belgrade at all costs.
At what point will the West recognise that it is Serbia, not Kosovo, that poses the real threat to stability in the Balkans? How many more times will the international community insist that Kosovo de-escalate in the face of Serbian aggression before it realises that this policy of appeasement is a recipe for disaster?
In every instance where Serbia has attacked Kosovo, whether through direct aggression, political interference, or subversive tactics, the U.S. State Department has consistently rushed to pressure Kosovo, the victim, to exercise restraint. The narrative is always the same: Kosovo must avoid "escalation" by not retaliating. This is despite the fact that it is Serbia that initiates aggression. Most recently, the U.S. even demanded that Kosovo withdraw its law enforcement from areas where Serbia, backed by the Kremlin, seeks to impose its control, an alarming parallel to Russia's annexation of Crimea.
This policy not only undermines Kosovo’s sovereignty, but also encourages further destabilisation by Serbia. Serbia, now harbouring terrorists with impunity, faces little to no accountability from the U.S. Instead, Washington refrains from publishing critical reports on Serbia’s actions and stops short of demanding any meaningful consequences. The U.S., which often portrays itself as a guardian of democracy and rule of law, appears complicit in enabling Serbia’s increasingly aggressive posture.
By hiding behind shallow statements of concern and empty condolences, the U.S. is actively obstructing justice and emboldening Serbia’s actions. This approach is not one of neutrality or diplomacy, it is one of complicity. And history will not remember kindly those who stood idly by while Serbia undermined peace and stability in the Balkans.
The indictments issued in Pristina against Milan Radoicic and 44 others represent a pivotal moment not just for Kosovo, but for the entire Balkan region. This case is emblematic of the deep, unresolved tensions between Kosovo and Serbia, tensions that have been exploited by criminal networks, backed by political forces in Belgrade, to destabilise the region. The fact that a figure like Radoicic, long associated with organised crime, paramilitary groups, alleged war crimes, and Serbian President Vucic himself, remains protected by Serbia's government speaks volumes about the complicity involved. Serbia’s refusal to extradite him, despite clear evidence of his involvement in the Banjska attack, underscores Belgrade’s continued strategy of using nationalist figures to assert dominance over Kosovo’s northern territory, all while denying its culpability on the international stage.
The failure of the U.S. and the EU to hold Serbia accountable for these provocations is as disturbing as it is unsurprising. For years, Western powers have opted for a policy of appeasement, choosing to overlook Serbia’s deepening ties to Moscow, its aggressive actions in Kosovo, and its destabilising influence in the region. In the name of political expediency, the West has prioritised Serbia’s strategic value, its lithium reserves, its position as a regional power, over the principles of justice and international law. But this approach has come at a high cost. By allowing Serbia to skirt accountability, both the U.S. and the EU are complicit in undermining the fragile peace in the Balkans. As the region teeters on the edge of renewed conflict, one thing is clear: justice, long delayed, is justice denied. And without accountability, the violence and impunity that have haunted the Balkans for decades will only continue to fester.
COVER PHOTO: Amid a tense standoff between Kosovan police and Serbian gunmen led by Milan Radoicic, chairman of the Serbian List, Kosovo police hold firm in Banjska Village near the Jarinje border crossing on October 3, 2023. The confrontation comes just two weeks after gunmen, labeled terrorists by Kosovo, killed Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku in a deadly clash. (VX Photo/Vudi Xhymshiti)