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Serbs Aware of UK’s ‘Gift’ for Ukraine: NATO Poisoned Serbia’s Soil for Billions of Years to Come

Sputnik – 23.03.2023

The radioactive substance that contaminated Serbian soil during NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 is still killing people, Dr. Zorka Vukmirovic, former scientific advisor at the Institute of Physics in Belgrade, told Sputnik, commenting on London’s plans to supply Ukraine with depleted uranium shells.

As one of the most glaring examples of the terrible consequences, she pointed to the depleted uranium bombing of a telecommunications station near Vranje in Serbia’s south in the spring of 1999 and the repercussions for the workers who had cleaned up the area around the destroyed facility. Seven of them have already died of cancer, and the eighth is suffering from cancer as well.

“It is a well-known fact that NATO has admitted to having dropped 10 tons of depleted uranium ammunition on the territory of Serbia. It was important to show where these munitions were used. A map was made in consultation with our army, which concluded that it was 15 tons of depleted uranium. The map was supplemented with some locations, and the map turned out to be far larger than NATO was trying to present,” Vukmirovic specified.

According to Dr. Vukmirovic, it is crucial to find places where pollution is still present because that is where people live, grow food and use water.

“The worst consequence is that all the dumped uranium, which gets into the groundwater with the rain, can endanger drinking water. Most of the known sites are along the border with Albania, and most of these sites belong to the Drin River. So it flows into the Adriatic Sea,” the expert said.

Vukmirovic points out that it is essential to clean up contaminated soil and properly dispose of waste throughout Serbia so that everyone can have healthy children.

“If this is not done, there is a great danger. Otherwise, the soil will remain contaminated for billions of years. Another problem is the solubility of uranium in contact with water. Rain dissolves this waste and sends it deeper into the groundwater, which is the source of drinking water,” she noted.

No Accurate Data on Illnesses

Sputnik’s source regrets that the exact number of people who came down with cancer as a result of the attacks with depleted uranium shells is unknown. No one has systematically collected such data.

According to the Institute of Public Health of Serbia, by 2014, 35,319 people nationwide were sick with cancer and 20,806 people had died. That’s more than 5,000 cases per million people, 2.8 times the global average.

In 2016, 22,004 people died, 60.8% more than in 1991.

With an annual mortality increase of 2.8%, Serbia has become the world’s leader in cancer deaths. In the US, for example, which has left the Serbs with tons of depleted uranium, these rates have been falling. During that time, the incidence rate there dropped by 0.6% and the mortality rate by 1.6%.

March 23, 2023 Posted by | Environmentalism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 1 Comment

Kosovo wants NATO-Serbia war – Belgrade

RT | March 11, 2023

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has accused the ethnic Albanian authorities in the breakaway province of Kosovo of attempting to provoke a war in which NATO would once again take their side.

“They want to drag Serbia into a conflict with NATO. Kurti wants to be like [Vladimir] Zelensky, and I would be some kind of [Vladimir] Putin,” Vucic said on Friday, referring to Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and the presidents of Ukraine and Russia.

“It’s what they’re after, what they’ve been doing all along. And in this, they have the support of a significant part of the international community, because [Kosovo] is their child,” he added.

Vucic was commenting on the recent arrest of an ethnic Serb on charges of “war crimes” dating back to the 1998-99 conflict, which ended with NATO bombing Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists. The provisional government in Pristina declared independence in 2008, with Western support, which Belgrade has refused to recognize.

“They don’t want normalization, they want to humiliate Serbia,” argued Vucic. “But I’m telling you, that won’t happen. There will be no humiliation, no capitulation.”

The proposal for “normalization of relations” between Pristina and Belgrade, made public last month by the EU, amounts to a de facto recognition of the breakaway province, which would have the right to join NATO, the EU, and the UN. Vucic insists he did not sign anything and will never agree to those terms.

“We are preparing for talks on Monday or Tuesday,” he said, referring to the EU-sponsored talks in neighboring North Macedonia. “But it’s not clear to me why. They said they wouldn’t agree to a deal. Well, why are you coming then? For us to recognize Kosovo?”

Vucic insists that before anything else can happen, the EU needs to enforce the 2013 Brussels Agreement, which among other things envisioned political autonomy for ethnic Serbs in the province. The ethnic Albanian authorities have refused to implement that part of the deal for ten years now, insisting it clashes with the ‘constitution’ of Kosovo. Neither the EU nor the US has done anything to influence Pristina to change its mind, Vucic noted.

Instead, the EU has just granted Kosovo visa-free travel to the bloc, while threatening an economic boycott against Serbia unless it joins the Western sanctions against Russia.

March 11, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Kiev’s terrorist regime possibly involved in assassination attempt in Transnistria

By Lucas Leiroz | March 10, 2023

According to information recently published by local authorities in Transnistria, a terrorist attack was planned by Ukrainian saboteurs in Tiraspol, the aim of which was to kill the current president of the autonomous republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky. The case reveals that in fact Kiev maintains regular terrorist activities abroad, using sabotage tactics to eliminate civilians considered “enemies” of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime.

The plan was discovered by the intelligence services of the secessionist republic. According to Tiraspol’s officials, the Ukrainian scheme was discovered in time to avoid the tragedy. It is believed that not only President Krasnoselsky would be targeted by the saboteurs, but also some other top Transnistrian officials would be assassinated. The agents behind the maneuver were linked to the Ukrainian Secret Service.

In a statement published on March 9, the Ministry of State Security says that “criminal cases have been opened and are being investigated with regard to the crimes”, despite the threats having already been neutralized. With this, it is possible to say that there is evidence of other plots within the republic aiming at damaging the local political system. Certainly, more information about these criminal cases will be revealed in the course of the next few days.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria Vitaly Ignatiev also commented on the case. He stated that the situation is under control and that the president is working normally in his office, with assured security. Ignatiev also said that the republic will formally ask Ukraine to cooperate in the investigation of the sabotage attempt, providing all the necessary information to identify and capture those responsible for the failed attempt at terrorist attack.

Tiraspol’s authorities believe that Ukraine’s possible willingness to cooperate in punishing the saboteurs is the only way to prevent tensions from escalating. If Kiev refuses to cooperate, it will be making clear that in fact there was a deliberate operation by the regime to destabilize Transnistria, and not a unilateral action by some Ukrainian spies. More than that: by denying cooperation Kiev will also be saying that it does not regret having planned the attack and suggesting that it will continue to plot against Transnistria, thus becoming an existential threat to the Republic.

In this sense, Foreign Minister Ignatiev also stated that if nothing is done by Kiev to help with the investigations, the Transnistrian government will request that the issue be discussed at the UN Security Council – a measure that would certainly be supported by the Russian Federation, which has taken the greatest responsibility for peace in the republic, keeping troops in the region to prevent illegal advances by the Moldovan government or foreign invasions.

Ukraine is unlikely to cooperate as Kiev has long practiced a policy of open terrorism against its opponents, carrying out illegal operations abroad. The assassination of Daria Dugina, the Bryansk attack, repeated drone incursions into undisputed Russian territory, and the recent assassination attempt on businessman Konstantin Malofeev make Ukrainian terrorism evident. However, to better understand the motives for sabotaging Transnistria, it is necessary to go beyond Ukraine and investigate the interests of the sponsors of the neo-Nazi regime: the Western governments.

It is necessary to take into account that the West has recently implemented a strategy of multiplying fronts. Faced with NATO’s imminent defeat in its war against Russia using Ukraine as a proxy, the objective now is to generate as many combat fronts as possible to distract Russian forces, forcing Moscow to keep soldiers in several conflict zones simultaneously.

This explains the Western pressure for Georgia to invade Abkhazia and South Ossetia – as well as the ongoing color revolution against the pro-peace government. It is also possible to understand the Azerbaijani sabotage against Artsakh and Armenia. And even the recent tensions between Kosovar terrorists and Serbian authorities can be analyzed from this perspective. All these are conflicts in which Russia would intervene supporting one of the sides, so it is in the West’s interest to intensify tensions so that Moscow maintains several combat fronts and increases its losses.

As it is possible to see, NATO tries to open these new combat fronts only in countries that are not part of the alliance, thus guaranteeing that new confrontations are fought without the need to involve the regular troops of the western countries – which are preserved for an eventual situation of direct war against Russia or China.

Indeed, Moscow has been actively working with local Transnistrian authorities to ensure that law and order is respected in the autonomous republic. The Western attempt to open new combat fronts has already been understood by Russian strategists, who work precisely trying to prevent tensions from escalating to open confrontation. It is possible that new eruptions of military frictions will arise in the coming months, but first the Russian government will do everything possible for these cases to be resolved through intelligence and diplomacy.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies; geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

March 10, 2023 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

After 15 years of ‘independence’, it is clear that Kosovo was a stepping stone for NATO’s imperial goals

Serbia’s breakaway province is an exercise in the ‘rules-based order’, where rules are made up for the convenience of Western powers

By Aleksandar Pavic | RT | February 17, 2023

On February 17, 2008, a group of US-backed “democratic leaders” headed by a former Western-sponsored terrorist declared the independence of Serbia’s breakaway province of Kosovo and Metohija (its full legal name under Serbia’s constitution).

It seemed oh so simple and straightforward at the zenith of the “unipolar moment,” and Kosovo Albanians were “confidently awaiting Western recognition for their state despite the anger its secession provoked in Serbia and Russia’s warnings of fresh Balkan unrest,” as a Reuters report drily noted.

Their confidence was more than justified, as 22 of 27 EU and 26 of 30 NATO member states eventually recognized this unilateral act of secession, pulling along many other smaller, mostly Western-dependent countries to follow suit. UN Security Council Resolution 1244, according to which the province is to remain an autonomous province of Serbia pending a mutually agreed final settlement, was ignored, just as the UN and international law were ignored in the spring of 1999, when NATO unilaterally engaged in a 78-day bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, under the familiar pretext of protecting “democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” This resulted in NATO’s military occupation of the province that lasts to this day.

The case of “independent Kosovo” is in many ways the perfect embodiment of the post-Cold War West’s “rules-based order.” In contrast to international law, which derives from the UN Charter and numerous universally accepted post-WWII treaties and agreements, the “rules-based order” is pretty much anything its propagators deem it to be in accordance with their political interests du jour. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it, these “rules” are “created from scratch for each particular case. They are written within a narrow circle of Western countries and palmed off as the ultimate truth.”

In the case of Kosovo and Metohija, the “rules” were to be tailored to the ambitions of the unipolar hegemon and its vassals. This formed the base of the collective West’s failed attempt to declare this instance sui generis, i.e., unique and incomparable to any other case, in order to prevent others from referring to it as a precedent – South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, the Donbass, and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, among others, begged to differ. And, no, the original goal of this unique “rule-setting” was not to protect “democracy, human rights and the rule of law” in Serbia’s historic province, which hosts not only the site of the legendary Battle of Kosovo of 1389, the only battle in which an Ottoman sultan was killed, but also hundreds of Serbian Orthodox medieval churches and monasteries. The true US interest was much bigger and less benevolent. And it was revealed in a document memory-holed by Western mainstream media, a May 2000 letter to then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder by Willy Wimmer, a member of the German Bundestag and vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE.

Wimmer’s letter contains a description of a security conference that he had attended in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava that was co-organized by the US State Department and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington-based think tank. A list of participants and the agenda could at one time be found on the AEI website but are no longer available at the time of writing. Almost all of the information available nowadays about it comes from Wimmer’s account. According to him, the conference not only exposed the true causes of NATO’s brutal attack on Yugoslavia and subsequent occupation of Kosovo and Metohija, but also the purpose behind NATO’s further enlargement toward the borders of Russia, and, most importantly from the aspect of global security, the US aim of undermining the international legal order as part of its drive for global domination. In essence, Wimmer’s report revealed the criminal plan that has brought the world to the brink of global, possibly nuclear, conflict.

According to senior US officials at the conference as cited by Wimmer, Yugoslavia was bombed “in order to rectify General Eisenhower’s erroneous decision during World War II,” when he failed to station US troops there. Naturally, as Wimmer recorded, no one at the conference disputed the claim that, having engaged in the bombing of a sovereign country, “NATO violated all international rules, and especially all the relevant provisions of international law.” Furthermore, NATO’s unilateral intervention outside its legal domain represented a deliberate “precedent, to be invoked by anyone at any time,” and “many others” in the future.

The ultimate imperial goals were clearly stated: “To restore the territorial situation in the area between the Baltic Sea and Anatolia such as existed during the Roman Empire, at the time of its greatest power and greatest territorial expansion. For this reason, Poland must be flanked to the north and to the south with democratic neighbor states, while Romania and Bulgaria are to secure a land connection with Turkey. Serbia (probably for the purposes of securing an unhindered US military presence) must be permanently excluded from European development. North of Poland, total control over St. Petersburg’s access to the Baltic Sea must be established. In all processes, peoples’ rights to self-determination should be favored over all other provisions or rules of international law.”

In short, the tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine today can be clearly traced back to NATO’s trampling of international law in the case of Kosovo and the “victorious” West’s building of a new (“rules-based”) order by expanding its military alliance all the way to Russia’s borders. If we were to apply the Nuremberg Principles of International Law formulated under UN General Assembly Resolution 177 on the basis of the post-WW II Nazi war crimes trials, NATO’s decision-makers would stand a very good chance of being found guilty of crimes against peace: “(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances,” and “(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).”

In other words, international law is inconvenient for today’s collective West not just for practical but for legal and moral reasons. Not to speak of the obvious historical parallels with a previous militaristic attempt at forming a “new order” that ended in a Berlin bunker after tens of millions of lives were extinguished. Wimmer’s (almost) forgotten correspondence is an indictment far deeper than the collective West’s current marriage of convenience with Kiev’s neo-Nazi element.

However, even as the Ukraine crisis continues to escalate, the new Battle of Kosovo is far from over. Because, 15 years on, the collective West still hasn’t been able to find a political accomplice in Belgrade ready to grant it retroactive amnesty by recognizing “independent Kosovo” and/or agreeing to its UN membership. That is why, even as they stubbornly press on with the latest Drang nach Osten on the military field, Western powers are also doubling down on their diplomatic pressure on Serbia, which not only refuses to formally recognize its own dismemberment but also to join the illegal sanctions against Russia. The latest ploy, informally called the Franco-German plan, is to try to force Serbia to recognize its province’s statehood in all but name, in return for foggy promises of financial aid and (distant) future EU membership. As a result, the current onslaught of Western diplomats on Belgrade is only slightly less intense than the parallel inflow of Western mercenaries to Kiev.

The problem for the collective West is that, despite its intense, decades-long pressure, substantial investment in the Serbian media and NGO sector, and threats of renewed international isolation, Serbian popular opinion remains stubbornly independent-minded. According to a recent report by the uber hawkish, London-based Henry Jackson Society, 53.3% of Serbian citizens wish their country to remain neutral in the Ukraine conflict (with a further 35.8% supporting an overtly pro-Russian stance), while 78.7% oppose sanctions against Russia and 54.1% think that Serbia should rely on Russia first when it comes to foreign policy (as opposed to 22.6% opting for reliance on the EU). Furthermore, the EU has definitely lost its luster, with 44.3% saying they would “definitely” or “probably” vote against EU membership (as opposed to 38.1% ready to vote for) if a referendum were to be held tomorrow. Finally, according to a recently released independent Serbian poll, 79.2% oppose EU membership as a “reward” for recognizing independence for Kosovo.

It can thus be argued that, much as Hitler’s march into the Rhineland broke the post-WW I world order, NATO’s unprovoked attack on Yugoslavia in 1999 was a deliberate move to destroy the post-Cold War order, while the Western-inspired declaration of Kosovo’s independence 15 years ago was an attempt to legitimize a new, “rules-based” order, which is now reaching its ugly culmination in Ukraine. And, taking the parallels a bit further, just as the attempted new order may meet its military Stalingrad in Ukraine, it might meet its diplomatic Stalingrad in Kosovo, well before the 20th anniversary of that occupied territory’s purported independence.

February 17, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Going for the Kill in Kosovo

By Stephen Karganovic | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 28, 2023

The collective West’s unsuccessful war against Russia using Ukraine as the stage and Ukrainians as cannon fodder has induced the Transatlantic alliance to desperately seek some semblance of victory, anywhere, in order to disguise the scope and lessen the political repercussions of its failure in the Ukraine.

The solution it has come up with to repair its tarnished hegemonic image is the aggressive campaign to wrap up “unfinished business” in the Balkans. Coming from such quarters, any “attention” to Balkan nations is invariably bad news for the country so favoured. That is the case in this instance as well.

The West judges, perhaps not entirely incorrectly, that Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, its perennial Balkan targets because thus far they have withstood total submission, are currently in a disadvantageous position to continue to resist effectively. With pretensions to embody the “international community,” although it consists mainly of the NATO/EU block of countries, the Alliance is increasingly and now openly shifting to a war footing. That raises to a new level its customary belligerence and disregard for the niceties of international legality and standard diplomatic practice. It never was greatly bothered in the past to observe the norms of civilised interaction between states. But now, with intense pressure to produce some kind of political victory to compensate for the failure in Ukraine, gloves are definitely off.

That puts both Serbia and its sister state, the Republic of Srpska, in a more precarious position than at any other time recently. They are both geographically distant from their natural allies and surrounded by hostile territory politically and militarily controlled by the Western Alliance, which is planning their demise. A comparison with the position of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941 would not be wide off the mark.

Complementing a similarly unenviable geopolitical predicament, there is an additional unfavourable analogy for Serbia. Its ruling elite are as feeble, vacillating, corruptible, treacherous, and disoriented as was the Royal Yugoslav government in March of 1941. That is when Nazi Germany went for the kill and demanded imperatively that in the looming global conflict Yugoslavia either commit to its side, or face dire consequences. Now it is NATO and EU which are going for the kill and the pretext is Kosovo. The Serbian government a few days ago was handed an ultimatum. The demand was that Serbia give up pretensions of sovereignty over NATO occupied Kosovo and unequivocally align itself with the aggressor alliance in the conflict in Ukraine. It was conveyed by a delegation of Western ambassadors in the form of a brutal warning that dilly dallying about Kosovo must come to an urgent end. Serbia was told that it must unreservedly acquiesce to the robbery of its cultural and religious cradle by signing off on Kosovo’s secession and accepting its illegal fruits. It should be recalled that the occupation of Kosovo was initiated in 1999, when NATO committed unprovoked aggression against Yugoslavia and it was completed in 2008 by a unilateral declaration of “independence” made under NATO auspices.

As is always the case, the West’s actual interest in Kosovo has nothing to do with the publicly stated reasons. Suffice it to say that Kosovo is the site of Camp Bondsteel, the largest military base in Europe, strategically situated so as to be of great use should the Ukrainian conflict degenerate further into an all-out global war.

Judging by official Belgrade’s initial reactions, it is conceivable that the Serbian government may be contemplating a course of action inspired by the collapse of the will experienced by the Royal Yugoslav government in March of 1941, when under Nazi pressure it did as ordered and signed its adherence to the Axis pact. It ought to be remembered by all concerned, however, that the consequences of that infamous breakdown were short lived. Within just a few days, popular revulsion in Serbia forced the ousting of officials responsible for the shameful betrayal of public trust. The immoral commitments they had undertaken on the nation’s behalf were effectively annulled. If further analogies need to be made with the situation in 1941, it should be pointed out that the reputation of the protagonists of cowardice and treachery displayed then lives in infamy to the present day.

Whether such considerations will be sufficient to deter those currently responsible for Serbia’s official decisions remains to be seen.

Alongside Serbia, the neighbouring Republic of Srpska, an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina populated mostly by Serbs, which recently experienced a turbulent election followed by an attempt to achieve regime change using instruments from the color revolution handbook, is also targeted for harsh treatment by the unforgiving Western democracies. Like Serbia’s, its population is solidly on the “wrong side of history” in general and in the Ukrainian conflict in particular, with all that implies. With a similar degree of unanimity, the population and the government are also opposed to having anything to do with NATO. Under the terms of the Dayton agreement signed in 1995, by which the prerogatives of Bosnia’s entities are governed, that effectively blocks Bosnia’s entry into NATO and participation in its activities.

Understandably, this blockade of what is euphemistically called Bosnia’s “Euro Atlanticist integrations,” is an insufferable affront and irritant. As a result, punitive measures against the uncooperative leadership of the Republic of Srpska are now being contemplated. It is a sure bet that if Serbia caves and in cowboy fashion the Kosovo issue is resolved, Bosnia’s defiant Serbian entity will soon be next. It will again find itself actively targeted and in the outraged “international community” cross hairs.

It is, of course, still premature to call the outcome of the ominous new chapter being prepared in the Kosovo crisis, but a perfect storm with turbulent effects appears to be approaching. The same recklessness that over the past year had been on display in the Ukraine is now in evidence increasingly in the Balkans. Andrey Martyanov’s repeated assessment of Western elites as arrogant, ignorant, and incompetent, which he illustrates with a steady stream of examples from the Ukrainian theatre, may soon find another resounding confirmation in the Balkans, to the immense misfortune of all its inhabitants.

January 28, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Serbian President Calls European Parliament’s Demands on Kosovo ‘Shameless’

Samizdat – 19.01.2023

BELGRADE – The resolution of the European Parliament, demanding Serbia recognize Kosovo as an independent state, is an example of the West’s “shameless” behavior, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Vucic met in Davos with EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue Miroslav Lajcak to discuss current developments around Kosovo after the EU parliament adopted a resolution based on the report on the common EU foreign and security policy for 2022.

The report demands Belgrade start talks with Pristina on mutual recognition and condemns Serbia’s “continued low level of alignment” with the EU on such issues as the Ukrainian conflict and sanctions against Russia, making the country’s further integration in the bloc contingent on the progress in these areas.

“They organized violent secession of our territory [Kosovo and Metohija in 1999]. How far could this shameless behavior go? I do not have the words,” Vucic told journalists on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

“They [West] say it is necessary to condemn those who allegedly encourage secession of parts of Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are the ones who decided to bomb our country and take away a part of our territory in defiance of the laws of the mankind, the UN Charter and norms of the UN Security Council.”

According to Vucic, the West is only interested in the topics of sanctions against Russia and Kosovo’s independence when talking to Serbia, and is not willing to tolerate any other views on these issues.

The Serbian leader also stated that some representatives of Western countries only understand the language of force, which makes it harder for Serbia to conduct its foreign policy.

In 2008, the Kosovo-Albanian structures in Pristina unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia. Since then, Kosovo has been recognized by 100 UN member states. In mid-December, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti handed over the application to join the European Union, though out of the 27 EU countries, Kosovo’s independence still is not recognized by Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia, and Romania.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Orban’s minister takes a jab at US

Free West Media | January 12, 2023

BUDAPEST – Hungary and Serbia want peace in Ukraine as soon as possible. Above all, they are against the negative effects of the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions on their economies. That is the conclusion of recent talks between Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic. Szijjártó pointed out how the two countries were experiencing the terrible consequences of the war – economically as well as in terms of safety due to their proximity to Ukraine.

Other countries, thousands of kilometers away from the conflict zone, do not have to face the same impact, he argued.

“It may not look so serious to them, but those who promote an escalation or prolong the war are acting against our national interests,” said the Orban minister, alluding to the US and its ongoing massive support for Ukraine. “Neither the Hungarians nor the Serbs are responsible for this war, but both peoples are paying for it. That is why we are interested in ending the armed conflict as soon as possible,” Szijjártó stressed.

Last month, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had warned that the Ukraine crisis would continue as long as the US supported the Kiev regime with money and weapons.

There was a real danger that the Ukraine conflict could drag on for decades and Washington is responsible for the escalation, he said. “Ukraine can only fight as long as the USA supports it with money and weapons. If the Americans want peace, there will be peace,” Orban told the newspaper Magyar Nemzet.

“It is not in our interest to cut off all our economic relations with Russia. We look at these issues through the Hungarian prism and not through that of other countries,” he noted.

January 12, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Ban on Orthodox patriarch ‘disgrace’ for West – Serbian president

RT | December 27, 2022

The decision by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian government to block the Serbian Orthodox patriarch from entering the breakaway province is as shameful as the non-response of Pristina’s Western backers, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday.

“This is a great shame, not for us, but for them,” Vucic said in a televised speech. “But it’s important for us to see how decision-makers, mainly in the West, truly feel about our people and our country.”

Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church was turned away when he tried visiting the patriarchal seat in Pec on Monday. Vucic noted that Western governments reacted by speaking about the importance of “freedom of movement” instead, focusing on the barricades put up by the protesting Serbs in the north of the breakaway province.

“Why is there such hysterical insistence on removing the barricades? Because they need to remove the Serbs from northern Kosovo, both the Albanians in Pristina and some in the international community,” the Serbian president said. “Albanians don’t use those roads, only Serbs in the north, who support the barricades as a way to defend their existence.”

The very same powers that “trampled Serbia’s territorial integrity” in 1999, during the NATO war, are “trying to do the same today” in violation of all international laws and treaties, “because they consider territorial integrity of Kosovo more important than Serb lives,” Vucic added.

NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 and handed control of Kosovo to ethnic Albanian separatists, who declared independence in 2008 and have demanded recognition from Belgrade ever since. Serbia has refused, despite pressure from the US and EU.

Residents of several Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo put up roadblocks earlier this month, protesting the arrest of an ethnic Serb policeman and the heavy presence of ethnic Albanian police in their communities.

The Russian ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, condemned Pristina’s actions towards the Orthodox patriarch, calling them “absolutely unreasonable” and “a ban on Orthodoxy.” He also said the ethnic Albanian police demanded the patriarch make “anti-Serb statements.”

Patriarch Porfirije described Monday’s incident as “if someone for no reason, with a laughable explanation, tried to prevent the Pope of Rome from entering the Vatican.” He nonetheless appealed for restraint and a peaceful solution to the ongoing tensions.

“Serbs have lived in Kosovo and Metohija for 15 centuries, five of them alongside Albanians. If there is good will, we can find a way to live together,” he said on Tuesday.

December 27, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Kosovo Conflict is Part of US, EU and NATO’s Broader Plan Aimed Against Serbia & Russia, Experts Say

By Ekaterina Blinova – Samizdat – 12.12.2022

Kosovo and Metohija Serb leader Goran Rakic announced on December 12 that a crisis headquarters would be created to provide civilians and the media with first-hand information about the simmering crisis in the north of the region. Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed Albanian leadership of the so-called Republic of Kosovo is urging NATO to step in.

“A standoff in the predominantly Serbian northern Kosovo was sparked by an arrest of a former police officer [Dejan Pantic] accused of attacking a Kosovo law enforcement patrol,” Scott Bennett, a former US psychological warfare officer and State Department counterterrorism analyst, and former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor, told Sputnik.

“Serbian protesters erected barricades over the weekend to stop Kosovo police from entering a town and launching any kind of a terror operation against the Serbian people. Tensions were already running high after Pristina announced snap elections in the area, which were expected to be boycotted by all Serbian parties. On Saturday, Kosovo’s [de facto] President Vjosa Osmani postponed the vote until April,” Bennett continued.

The Albanian population of Serbia’s province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. Serbia has de facto not controlled the territory of its southern province since 1999, after the US-led NATO invasion of Yugoslavia, which was the first all-out war in Europe after the Second World War.

Even though the so-called Republic of Kosovo has been recognized by the US and less than half of the international community, Serbia’s territorial integrity is confirmed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999. Hence, there is no state border between them, but just an internal border line.

This summer, tensions erupted around the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo after Pristina decided to impose a ban on the entry of vehicles with Serbian license plates from August 1, 2022. This prompted Serbs, who maintain large communities in northern Kosovo, to hold protests against the move.

Pristina’s initiative was clearly in breach of the 2013 Brussels Agreement. The agreement guaranteed that “there will be an association/community of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo” with substantial local powers and ties to Serbia. The treaty was negotiated and concluded in Brussels under the auspices of the European Union.

“The Brussels negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina did not bring any positive result for Serbia, but led to the violation of international law, i.e. Resolution 1244, and the Constitution of Serbia,” Dragana Trifkovic, director of the Center for Geostrategic Studies, told Sputnik. “At the same time, the Pristina side did not even fulfill what it committed to in the Brussels agreement. Therefore, the only solution would be for Serbia to announce that it is canceling the Brussels agreement and request that the negotiation process continue in the UN, where it is the place for negotiations if we take into account the fact that the status of Kosovo cannot be resolved outside the framework of the UN Security Council. Attempts by the West to resolve the Kosovo issue outside the framework of international law must be condemned.”

On July 31, 2022 the Russian Foreign Ministry lambasted Pristina and its backers in Brussels and Washington for an attempted expulsion of the Serbian population and Serbian social institutions from Kosovo, calling upon the international community to observe the rights of Serbs in the region.

At the time, the de-facto Albanian authorities of the region backed down, but the conflict erupted again in December.

On Thursday, December 8, the “customs” of the self-proclaimed republic confiscated a batch of 42,000 liters of wine from one of the oldest Serb producers in the village of Velika Hoča in the southwest of the region. The formal reason was that the activities of the manufacturer’s legal entity were frozen during the COVID pandemic. De facto customs officers drove the tank to the wine cellar and poured all sorts of wine into it, thereby actually destroying the high-quality product, which would be impossible to consume if returned.

On December 10, the self-declared republic’s security forces detained 56-year-old former Serb police officer Dejan Pantic on “suspicion of terrorism.” Pantic resigned in November along with other Serbian law enforcement personnel from the self-proclaimed republic’s Interior Ministry. At the time, some Serbs living in Kosovo deliberately withdrew from local government institutions in protest against Pristina’s decision to fine anyone who did not change their Serbian car registration plates to Kosovo ones. Pantic was arrested while trying to enter central Serbia.

Pantic’s arrest prompted Kosovo Serbs to blockade roads and checkpoints on the administrative line between Kosovo and central Serbia. After that, employees of the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) in Kosovo and KFOR – the NATO-led international force in Kosovo – were dispatched to the barricades. NATO reportedly has roughly 3,700 personnel stationed in Serbia’s province.

The media reported interruptions in Internet and mobile communications. Gunshots were also heard in the north of Kosovo. Eventually, Kosovo’s de facto President Vjosa Osmani announced that local elections scheduled for December 18, 2022 would be postponed until next year.

Meanwhile, Serbia’s President Vucic announced on Saturday that he would make a request to the commander of NATO’s KFOR mission to deploy a 1,000-strong Serbian contingent in the north of Kosovo to protect Serbs under UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

The resolution authorizes Serbia to deploy up to 1,000 military, police, and customs officials to Kosovo’s Orthodox Christian religious sites, areas with Serb majorities, and border crossings, if such a deployment is approved by KFOR’s commander. However, Vucic added that he had “no illusions” that his request would be approved by NATO.

US and Brussels are Behind Kosovo Conflict

According to Bennett, the escalation of tensions over Kosovo was provoked by the US and its Western allies in order to tighten the screws on Belgrade, with whom Russia has a longstanding special relationship, amid Moscow’s special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.

“It seems the West, and specifically the United States and its proxies in NATO, are planning a military pivot to open up a new civil war between Serbia and Kosovo, as a means of menacing Russia and opening up a potential new front,” said Bennett. “So expect some kind of a false flag attack where the British-American intelligence services and military mercenaries artificially create a situation – most likely a bombing or massacre – and blame it on Serbia and Russia, to engineer yet another wave of hysterical EU sanctions and NATO military support for Kosovo against Serbia, and by proxy Russia.”

Hysteria has already engulfed Brussels and Pristina, with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell trying to threaten Belgrade over possible attacks on the EULEX and Kosovo’s de facto Prime Minister Albin Kurti urging the West to “punish” Serbia.

“The EU has behaved as a biased side from the beginning,” Professor Stevan Gajic, a research associate at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade, told Sputnik. “And this was obvious, since the negotiations were basically lowered to the level of the EU from the level of the United Nations. The EULEX was biased. The whole process of Brussels agreements was only a sham in order for Serbia to give up all its state powers that it had. It is only logical that now the EU behaves like this. This might be a provocation. Serbia is very calm, actually trying not to use force to defend its citizens. But it only depends on the Western structures, whether they want to escalate or de-escalate this conflict.”

Gajic noted that nothing has changed in the West’s perception of Serbia over the last two centuries: “[T]he Serbs resisted Hitler’s pact [in July 1941] and we were bombed and consequently occupied,” he noted, referring to Nazi Germany’s occupation and subsequent division of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941 and Serbia’s resistance movement.

“NATO already bombed us twice in the 1990s,” the professor continued. “They bombed the positions of Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Croatia in 1995, and then they bombed Yugoslavia, meaning Serbia and Montenegro, in 1999, directly supporting Albanian separatists and terrorists. Now they are again against the Serbs because they see us as proxies of Russia. And this didn’t start yesterday, but it’s been like that for the last 200 years, at least.”

The West is currently trying hard to sever ties between Moscow and Belgrade by both demanding that Serbia impose sanctions on Russia, and pressuring Belgrade into signing a comprehensive peace agreement with Pristina, which would pave the way to Serbia losing its Kosovo province, according to Trifkovic.

“The request for the introduction of sanctions against Russia is related to this in the sense that the West believes that by severing the ties between Russia and Serbia, it would solve the Kosovo issue much faster in terms of the implementation of the Kosovo independence project,” she explained. “Even if Serbia were to impose sanctions on Russia, which over 80% of the population of Serbia opposes, there would still be demands to sign a comprehensive peace agreement with Pristina.”

In addition to that, the West seems eager to twist Belgrade’s hand into dropping its partnership with Moscow because the US and EU’s anti-Russia sanctions have turned out to be a complete failure, according to Bennett. “Former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has said Europeans are bearing the brunt of the crisis, while Moscow’s economy is doing fine,” the former US State Department counterterrorism analyst remarked. The West’s inability to “rein in” Moscow is casting a shadow over its image as leader of the world order.

One shouldn’t be deluded into believing Washington or Brussels’ statements about their intent to maintain peace and stability in Kosovo, according to Bennett. “As we have seen in the past, the promises and agreements made by the West, by the EU, and by NATO are worthless and not to be trusted,” he stressed.

Another telling moment, according to Bennett, is former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent remarks about the 2015 Minsk Agreements, which deeply frustrated President Vucic:

“President Vucic describe[ed] how amazed, shocked, and disappointed he was to discover that Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted what many people suspected all along: that the promises made by Germany and France in the Minsk agreements were never intended to be honored, and were instead simply a ruse or lie intended to generate space and time for the Ukrainian military to build up its ability to wage a proxy war against Russian civilians. President [Vladimir] Putin has also commented on the deceitfulness of this grotesque betrayal, but then again, betrayal and monstrous ugliness seems to be fast becoming the main characteristic of the European Union’s character,” Bennett observed.

Meanwhile, there are numerous similarities between the involvement of American politics in Kosovo and Ukraine, said Trifkovic.

She noted that in both cases, the US, as well as other Western countries, supported extremism, fuelled militant nationalism directed against the Serbs and the Russians in Kosovo and Ukraine, respectively. NATO also provided logistical and material support, so the extremists underwent training and received weapons, according to her. Meanwhile, the Western mainstream media actively spread anti-Serbian and anti-Russian propaganda, with numerous Western-funded NGOs joining the media chorus, the Serbian geopolitical analyst pointed out.

“By and large, they created a complex war atmosphere, and they brought to power extremist structures in Kosovo, as well as in Ukraine, which they control and through which they actually rule,” Trifkovic said. “At the expense of that, American and other Western companies [served] their economic interests. In Kosovo and Metohija, the Americans opened the largest military base in Europe, Bondsteel, and I am sure that there were plans to open American military bases in Ukraine as well. In fact, American military bases have surrounded the whole of Russia, and the attack on Serbia in 1999 was only one segment of that process.”

December 12, 2022 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Serbia’s Vucic Accuses US, Pristina of Not Complying With Any Agreements on Kosovo

Samizdat – 11.12.2022

BELGRADE – The United States and the Kosovo authorities in Pristina are not following any acts or agreements on Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said following a Security Council meeting convened on Sunday amid mounting tensions in the predominantly Serb-populated north of Kosovo.

Vucic called the meeting after Kosovo’s de facto leader Albin Kurti urged the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) to dismantle road barricades erected by local Serbs in the north of the breakaway region. He said that Pristina would be waiting for a response from KFOR mission command until the evening. If KFOR refuses to step in, Kosovo’s own security forces will be ready to carry out this operation themselves, Kurti said.

“We have one question for our American partners. Tell us, which agreement is Pristina abiding by and which act are you abiding by? The UN Charter, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the Brussels Agreement, or the Washington Agreement? Name us one of these documents that Pristina respects, at least one that they and the US respect,” Vucic said in his address after the meeting.

Washington and Pristina believe they can “do whatever [they] want and as much as [they] want,” without respecting any agreements on Kosovo, the Serbian president said.

Serbs in the northern part of Kosovo began setting up barricades on roads on Saturday in protest of the arrest of Dejan Pantic, former police officer who quit his post in mid-November and was arrested by the Kosovo authorities at the Jarinje border crossing on suspicion of “terrorism.”

On Saturday evening, Vucic said in his address to the nation that Belgrade would send a formal request to the KFOR mission command for permission to deploy the Serbian military and police in Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244. He also showed photos of Kosovar soldiers in heavy equipment and with automatic weapons in the north of the region near the border with Serbia. Vucic recalled that, according to the agreements reached earlier, special police forces can only be deployed to the Serb-majority municipalities with the authorization of regional heads.

Earlier on Sunday, Vucic pledged that his country would continue efforts to settle the Kosovo issue using legal means and called on Pristina to create the Community of Serb Municipalities in accordance with the 2013 Brussels Agreement.

December 11, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

EU’s carrot and stick policy toward Serbia ends as Brussels drops carrot from equation

By Drago Bosnic | November 3, 2022

After over two decades of keeping Serbia in a semi-colonial state, the European Union seems to finally admit that it sees the Southeast European country precisely as such – a semi-colony. For approximately 20 years, Brussels played the carrot and stick cards with Belgrade, forcing it to renounce important segments of its sovereignty in return for access to EU funds and markets.

The neoliberal economic framework that the EU insisted on devastated the country’s hybrid market socialist economy and ruined domestic economic power, paving the way for the dominance of foreign investors and turning the country into yet another source of cheap labor for Western corporate interests. However, even while implementing such policies, disastrous for any country’s economic (or any other form of) sovereignty, it created an image of growth.

And yet, the waning economic power of Brussels, resulting primarily from its suicidal subservience to Washington DC’s Barbarossa-like push against Russia, is starting to affect the “carrot” portion of the EU’s policy toward Serbia. Frustrated by the country’s refusal to conform with the political West’s clinically Russophobic frenzy, the bureaucratic empire is now resorting to using the “stick”. With little to nothing left to offer, the EU is now threatening to scale back the benefits it gave Serbia in the last two decades to punish the country for its non-compliance in regards to the bloc’s anti-Russian sanctions and policies. To make matters worse, Brussels insists that Belgrade should still continue renouncing parts of its sovereignty while the EU is rolling back the apparent benefits it previously gave in return.

What does Serbia get from all this? A geopolitically worthless shoulder tap that will not help the country in any conceivable way. On the contrary, it may very well ruin its centuries-old relationship with Russia, a country exerting no pressure on Serbia while helping it preserve what’s left of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. For the political West, now effectively operating under a “you’re either with us or against us” foreign policy framework, Serbia’s neutrality is seen as nothing short of hostile. Belgrade is forced to beg to stay neutral in the Ukraine crisis, but to no avail, it seems. Anything less than full compliance is unacceptable to the imperialist power pole. To show just how much, the EU now considers Serbia’s membership ambitions effectively dead, as the negotiations to join the bloc have become a mere formality, having been stalled for years.

Brussels now thinks Serbia should not be conditioned by the termination of accession negotiations, since “joining the EU is as realistic as going to Mars,” as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung put it. The analogy is quite indicative of how the bloc sees Serbia’s future and should serve as an eye-opener in Belgrade. Coupled with recent allegations that Serbia is “trying to destabilize the EU at the behest of Russia”, it’s clear that despite how much sovereignty it renounces, how far it’s ready to go against its national interests, the country will never be good enough to join the bloc. The question remains then, what’s the point? Why would Serbia even want to join the EU? It seems the Serbian populace is well aware of this and it’s not so keen on joining either.

The EU now realizes that stopping membership negotiations would effectively mean nothing to the Serbian people. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung thinks that “the warnings about the possible freezing of accession negotiations are a blunt sword against Belgrade,” as the negotiations have been stagnant for years. “Their termination would not leave an impression on the Serbian population, which is critical of the EU anyway. In addition, even among the advocates of the EU in Belgrade, almost no one believes that joining the EU is realistic. Equally, Serbia could be threatened with a ban on access to Mars,” the report states.

However, it’s a different story when it comes to abolishing visa-free travel for Serbian citizens, a topic first mentioned by the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs Ylva Johansson. “It would greatly affect the Serbian economy, as well as the predominantly urban population that travels, as well as the authorities. It is the most lethal weapon in Brussels’ arsenal,” the German paper commented. “If visas were introduced again, that sense of isolation would be like a nightmare again, which first ended when the visas were abolished in 2009. Anger due to a return to the dark times would certainly be directed against the Serbian government,” the report adds.

The previously veiled threats by Brussels seem to have become quite direct at this point, since the EU isn’t just planning to get the “carrot” out of the equation (it effectively did already), but will also not hesitate using the “stick” now. What’s more, the move is openly aimed against Serbia’s political stability, as the EU expects to cause widespread discontent which, in turn, would result in exerting additional pressure on the Serbian government. Belgrade certainly could comply and start distancing itself from Moscow. It might even feign this while coordinating with Russia by implementing policies that would affect quite literally nothing.

For instance, it could impose sanctions on Russian sea shipping (Serbia is landlocked) or ban access to Russian airline companies, which can’t reach Serbia anyway, as the country is surrounded by EU members which already did that. But the question remains, where does it stop? Will the political West ever be content enough to stop blackmailing and threatening the country? It might be politically unwise for the Serbian government to answer that (rhetorical) question, but it certainly isn’t for the Serbian people.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

November 3, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

EU blackmails Serbia – interior minister

Samizdat | October 16, 2022

The EU’s offers to Serbia are unacceptable, and Serbs should “accept that they don’t want us,” Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin told the Novosti news site on Saturday. He added that Belgrade should instead turn its attention to “free countries that accept us without blackmail,” such as Russia and China.

“The question is not whether we want to join the EU, but whether the EU wants Serbia,” Vulin told Novosti. “Judging by the insane blackmail they are exposing us to…they don’t want us. The sooner we accept that they don’t want us and that we don’t belong there, the better off we will be.”

A traditional ally of Russia, Serbia has come under intense pressure from the West to back the sanctions regime against Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine. The European Parliament has considered freezing accession talks with Belgrade over the latter’s refusal to back its eight rounds of economic penalties, US state media reported last month, while Germany and France have offered to “accelerate” Serbia’s path to EU membership if it recognizes the independence of the province of Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated last week.

For Vulin and Vucic, the answer to these offers is a clear “no.”

“How much would our friends respect us if they saw us neglecting our interests in the face of enemy force?” Vulin asked. “Who would fight for us if we chose not to fight for ourselves?

“Relations with Russia, China and other free countries that accept us without blackmail and conditions are the future of Serbia,” he continued. “I believe that friendship with Russia is of the greatest importance and that without it we risk the physical disappearance of Serbia.”

According to a poll taken in March, some 61% of Serbs oppose any cooperation with the US-led NATO alliance, largely due to the bloc’s support for Kosovo’s independence and its 1999 bombing campaign that brought about the end of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, while Serbia applied for EU membership in 2009, accession looks to be off the table for now. The EU’s latest sanctions package targeting Russian oil exports looks set to cost Belgrade hundreds of millions of euros, Vulin said last week, describing it as the “first EU sanctions package against Serbia.”

Hungary has responded to the sanctions by announcing a new pipeline to help Serbia tap into the supply of Russian crude oil.

October 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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