Russia is getting close information about Jarinje

The presence of Russian officials, accompanied by Serbs, in the facilities of the Serbian Army on the border between Serbia and Kosovo is a confusing message from Belgrade, which may be condemned by Western countries, foreign policy analyst Bosko Jaksic told Radio Free Europe (RFE).

For the eighth day in a row, Kosovo Serbs have been blocking two crossings in northern Kosovo - Jarinje and Brnjak - due to the decision on reciprocity, but also due to the decision that the plates with cities in Kosovo, issued by Serbia, will be confiscated.

Just a few kilometers to the north, Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic and Serbian Army Chief of Staff Milan Mojsilovic visited part of the Serbian Army's high-alert forces at the Rudnica military base, near the town of Raska, on September 26, on the way to the border crossing. Jarinje.

Alexander Bocan Kharchenko, the ambassador of the Russian Federation, and the envoy of the defense, Major General Alexander Zinchenko, were with them, and the reason is stated "in order to be personally convinced of the current situation".

Bosko Jaksic estimates that it is a diplomatic point of Moscow, and a failure of Belgrade.

"Moscow continues to successfully use the Kosovo conflict as the most important channel for expanding its influence. On the other hand, Belgrade recklessly took the ambassador to Raska, and there is no doubt that the process will be interpreted as a provocation in the West," Jaksic believes.

What did Russian and Serbian officials say?

According to the official website of the Ministry of Defense of Serbia, Minister Stefanović thanked the guests from Russia, "for getting acquainted with the situation on the administrative line and the north of Kosovo and Metohija [Kosovo and Metohija]."

The Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Serbia, Aleksandar Bocan Kharchenko, confirmed Russia's support for Belgrade's position and expressed the concern of official Moscow, it is added.

"This is aimed at ethnically pure Kosovo," Bocan Kharchenko assessed.

The Russian ambassador also used the visit to comment on the position of Western countries, which he called "strange" and "harmful", emphasizing that they "close their eyes to a situation that is very dangerous, although, as he said - everyone understands who is guilty and where the reason for such provocation".

The European Union, the United States and NATO have on several occasions since the beginning of the crisis called on Serbia and Kosovo to calm tensions and dialogue.

A clear message from Moscow to Belgrade

Political analyst Dragomir Andjelkovic says for RFE that the Russian Federation is sending support to Serbia in this way and is sending a message that it will stand behind the measures that Belgrade will take.

"That message was sent primarily to Belgrade, and everyone else can conclude on that basis that Belgrade has more room for maneuver to act, if it is necessary to protect Serbs in Kosovo," says Andjelkovic.

According to him, the presence of Russian officials in Serbia's military facilities contributes to calming tensions, because "the European Union, which was the guarantor of the Brussels Agreement, did nothing to implement that agreement."

Serbia's timid course towards the Kremlin

Bosko Jaksic, on the other hand, believes that in this way, Serbia is sending both its position towards the solution of the Kosovo issue, and in terms of its geostrategic orientation.

"On the one hand, we have a message addressed, among other things, to NATO, and at the same time we often hear that NATO is the guarantor of the security of Serbs in Kosovo , believes Jaksic.

He notes that the President of the state, Aleksandar Vučić, reiterates that membership in the European Union is a geostrategic commitment of Serbia, and at the same time he constantly withdraws moves that bring this into doubt.

This is always done because of concessions to Russia, adds Jaksic.

"In that context, the stay of Ambassador Kharchenko in the south of Serbia is another confirmation of the timid course of Vučić's government towards the Kremlin," Boško Jakšić believes.

Serbian Defense Minister talks with Russians about Kosovo for the second time

Nebojsa Stefanovic also met with the Russian ambassador to Serbia on September 22 in Belgrade. The Minister then, as stated on the ministry's website, expressed gratitude for "the firm and consistent support that the Russian Federation provides to Serbia in preserving its territorial integrity and sovereignty, especially in these difficult times that the Serbian population is experiencing in Kosovo and Metohija."

Stefanovic added that the current situation, "in which Pristina violates freedoms of movement by imposing new unilateral measures, represents a continuation of disrespect for the Brussels Agreement."

Serbia and Russia and criticism

Serbia and Russia have traditionally maintained close relations. Both countries do not recognize the independence of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. Russia votes against Kosovo's admission to the UN, while in return Serbia refuses to impose sanctions on Moscow.

Precisely because of the cooperation with Russia, Serbia is the target of criticism from the West because, as a candidate country for membership in the European Union (EU), it has not yet harmonized its foreign policy with the European one.

The military cooperation between Serbia and Russia also worries the West. Thus, in June, the rapporteur of the European Parliament for Serbia, Vladimir Bilchik, assessed that the joint military exercise with Belarus and Russia does not help Serbia's progress in European integration.

Serbia participated in the trilateral exercise "Slavic Brotherhood 2021." with Russia and Belarus from June 8 to 19 at the base of the Novorossiysk Guards Airborne Mountain Unit on the territory of Krasnodar, in the southwest of the European part of Russia.

Activities of pro-Russian accounts in Serbia

"Moscow is worried about Kosovo." This is just one of the many headlines shared on Facebook from pro-Russian accounts in Serbia since the beginning of the crisis on the border between the two countries.

These are groups and they have pro-Russian elements in their names. The key words that connect them are: Putin, Serbia, Russia, the Kremlin.

However, these orders have another common feature. They publish each post at the same time. A search by Radio Free Europe found six accounts of Facebook groups running a synchronized campaign.

The announcements talk about Serbia's activities on the border with Kosovo in a positive context, and in the same tone, they comment on the involvement of Russian officials in the crisis.

This is not the first time that these groups have been activated during crisis situations in relations with Serbia's neighbors. They joined the nationalist rhetoric at the beginning of September 2021 during the tensions and incidents in Cetinje, which followed the enthronement of the Metropolitan of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Ioannicius. Their activity was then pointed out by the Digital Forensic Center (DFC) from Podgorica.

And Russian controversial media focused on Kosovo

The events in the north of Kosovo are closely monitored by the NewsFront portal. "The community of Serbian municipalities is banned in Kosovo," "Kurti is preparing for a new crisis", are some of the headlines on that portal.

Facebook announced in April 2020 that it had removed a network of accounts and pages from Russia that, among other things, were published in Serbian, as part of its efforts to stop coordinated campaigns that seek to manipulate public debate.

"This network has published in Russian, English, German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Serbian, Georgian, Indonesian and Farsi, focusing on a wide range of regions around the world. Our investigation has linked this activity to individuals in Russia, the Donbas region in "Ukraine and two media organizations in Crimea - 'NewsFront' and 'SouthFront'. We found this network as part of our internal investigation into suspicious coordinated unauthorized behavior in the region," the Facebook report said.

Information from the north of Kosovo is also published by the Catechon portal, whose representatives are a Russian businessman known for his ties to the Kremlin and advocating conservative and nationalist views, Konstantin Malofeev and Alexander Dugin, a prominent nationalist ideologue associated with the Kremlin.

One of the texts states that "the trolling of the Albanians forced Serbia to revolt” and the portal also reported on the movement of the Serbian army towards the border with Kosovo.

And that's not the end

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti wrote on his Facebook account on September 25 that some "criminals with extremist views" had participated in blocking crossings in northern Kosovo.

"Vladislav Dajković, a Montenegrin citizen, entered Kosovo on September 22, 2021, through the Jarinje border crossing and joined the protesters. He also has Serbian citizenship," Kurti wrote with the published photos of Dajković.

"Dajkovic is also a member of the Russian imperialist movement (whose flag can be seen in the photo), which the United States has declared a terrorist organization," Kurti said in a statement.

Dajkovic, who is otherwise politically active in the bloc of parties that are the opposition of President Milo Djukanovic, reacted on the same day and stated on his Facebook account that he is not an extremist and that he is not a Russian mercenary.

"I am an ordinary young Serb from Montenegro who went to Kosovo and Metohija to shake hands and hug his Serb brothers who are fighting for human rights on their hearth," he said, adding that Kosovo authorities had banned him from entering Kosovo.

In her statement on the same day, the President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, called on the international community not to ignore, as she said, the tendency of Russia and Serbia to destabilize the region, to harm the European Union and NATO.