How to stop Russia’s second front in the Balkans

Recently, Russian plans to destabilize and capture Belarus, Moldova and the Baltic States were leaked. In a similar fashion, we now know much more about Russia’s initial plans for invading and taking over Ukraine.   

Thus, it is incontrovertible that Russia has been at war with its neighbors, albeit in a non-kinetic manner, for several years. It is equally likely that similar plans and strategies exist for subverting and destabilizing Balkan states besides Moldova. In 2016, for example, Moscow attempted coups in both Montenegro and Bulgaria. And there, for Moscow, the real prize would be Serbia, where it has long since established several beachheads of influence in the media, energy and defense sectors, as well as in Serbian and Bosnian Serb politics more generally. 

In many, if not all, of these cases, the strategy comprised measures to secure niches in these aforementioned sectors while simultaneously exploiting every conceivable ethnic, social, political and religious cleavage in Balkan countries —  not only Serbia. At the same time, Moscow’s agents tasked with this mission organized large mass movements that could be brought out into the streets to push for the regime’s overthrow, often due to a Moscow-generated crisis.  

Thus, in February, Ukrainian intelligence revealed to Moldova the existence of such a plot to overthrow its government and set up a pro-Moscow regime that would then threaten Ukraine from the southwest. Not only did indigenously recruited pro-Moscow forces generate this threat but mercenaries from Russia’s notorious Wagner private army — operating as the orchestrator of insurgency — also took direct part in this operation, as it has done in Africa as well. 

A similar pattern may have been planned for Serbia. According to Serbian media, these groups are providing the new recruits with combat training in a similar style to the Sudoplatov Battalion (named for a notorious Stalin-era KGB assassin and agent) now fighting in Zaporizhzhia.  Beyond that, in Serbia, Wagner has evidently taken operations a step further. It has created and supported right-wing extremist groups —“The People’s Patrol” and the “Russian-Serbian Center Orlovi”— to destabilize Serbian politics. These groups then mobilized pro-Russian Serbs to launch major demonstrations against Serbia improving ties with Kosovo. Serbian police have arrested several armed demonstrators who were advocating for the violent overthrow of the government. 

When we consider these facts within the contexts of the attempted coups in both Moldova and Bulgaria, it becomes clear that these attempts are being orchestrated by Moscow with the support of local proxies. Furthermore, this is obviously an element of Moscow’s overall strategy to open up a “second front” in Europe. 

The destabilization of Balkan governments and their replacement by pro-Russian clients would achieve many goals for Moscow. It would stop the process of European integration in both NATO and the European Union in its tracks. It would also allow Russia more control over the Black Sea and over energy policy in the Balkans, and thus, Central Europe, permitting Russian naval or other bases in or around the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas. It would also create a second front against Ukraine, threatening it militarily from the rear, blocking its ability to ship its grain overland through the Balkans and blocking many Western supply routes to it.  

In other words, successful Russian-backed coups in the Balkans would upend the entire agenda of transatlantic security. 

In Moldova, Russian plans failed because Ukraine got wind of them and informed the government so it could take action. But the weakness of that state makes it perpetually vulnerable to these threats. In Serbia, on the other hand, President Aleksandar Vucic apparently made moves on his own to block these efforts and preserve the balance where Serbia oscillates between East and West by conducting military exercises with NATO. Therefore, Western efforts to integrate the Balkans must continue to strengthen and reward progress toward democratic governance, ending the Serb-Kosovar disputes and promoting economic development. Pro-Western elements must be encouraged, not neglected, and the area as a whole must regain its status as a priority in Western policy.  

Vucic’s Serbia has so far not only withstood the Russian challenge, but indeed, President Vucic has so far demonstrated that he will not play Moscow’s game. He has recommitted Serbia for eventual membership in the EU.  In a meeting with American ambassadors, Vucic concurred on the importance of supporting Bosnia-Herzegovina’s territorial integrity, multiethnic state character and functional state-level institutions, as stipulated in the 1995 Dayton agreement. This was a direct rebuff to Moscow and its Bosnian Serb client, Milorad Dodik, who supported the notion of seceding from Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

Not only has Vucic reinstated the dialogue with Kosovo, despite the difficulties in doing so, he is also advancing them. For example,  Kosovo and Serbia have now agreed to cooperate in resolving the cases of missing people from the war of 1998-99. This is clearly linked to his desire to maintain and expand economic ties with the U.S. Likewise, Russia’s economic presence in Serbia is declining steadily due to Western sanctions and Serbia is now looking to diversify its energy suppliers. Lastly, Vucic stated that any Serbs recruited by Wagner will be arrested on their way home. 

Nevertheless, the existing inroads under Moscow’s control and the ever-present ethnic tensions in Bosnia and Kosovo also put it at significant risk. Thus, Western governments must work with Serbia and its neighbors to strengthen their states. Concurrently, they must work together to extinguish the fires of ethnic tension that give Moscow an opening. They must also devise a reliable alternative to Russian energy and build a functioning and reliable network of energy infrastructure to strengthen Balkan economies and deprive Moscow of its previous excessive leverage over governments and societies in the Balkan. 

In other words, the necessity of integrating the Balkans has become, if anything, more urgent. As that integration can only be achieved through existing governments, Western institutions must work together with them to strengthen both their democratic capabilities and their effectiveness, lest this second front materialize.  

If that were to occur, then the war in Ukraine will not only become harder to win, it will also morph into a general European conflict. And that is unacceptable. 

Stephen Blank, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). He is a former professor of Russian national security studies and national security affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and a former MacArthur fellow at the U.S. Army War College. Blank is an independent consultant focused on the geopolitics and geostrategy of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasia.