Serbia is only in the news when it defends Novak Djokovic, that pro tennis player who
doesn't want to get vaccinated. So then, who cares about Serbia? Well, without going any further,
Putin. Remember the speech in which he announces the invasion of Ukraine? I am
sure you have all seen some excerpts of the speech. Well, pay attention to this part.
Putin recited all the wrongs the West has done against Russia's
interests since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. That's what
the Russian president was talking about when he mentioned the Belgrade bombings.
I know what many of you are thinking... especially those of you over 30... Belgrade
bombings? That sounds familiar! I've heard about that! Exactly,
we are talking about an episode of the Balkan War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history.
A war that took place on European soil around the time when almost all of you who watch
VisualPolitik were born. Today, Serbia is a country with fewer than 7 million inhabitants.
It has never been a superpower nor does it have significant natural resources. However,
this country is where World War I and... the Balkan War broke out.
So the question we ask you today is... Why is Serbia so troubled? What happened in
that Balkan War that we all saw as children on the news? And why does
Putin bring it up in his speeches? What are the ties between Serbia and Russia?
Today on VisualPolitik we are going to answer these questions
but first... let's take a look at some history.
T1(YUGOSLAVIA, THE LAND OF THE SOUTH SLAVS)
For centuries the Balkans were the buffer between two empires:
the Austrian and the Ottoman. It was at the end of the 19th century that
the Serbs gained independence from Turkish rule and proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbia.
The problem is that the Balkans are home to
many different ethnic groups. Each with its own language,
religion and national sentiment. Some Serbs did not live within the new Kingdom of Serbia.
Many lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was a province still within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Well, a group of Serb separatists organized the Sarajevo bombing. The rest is history.
In 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist,
assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Consequently Austria-Hungary declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia,
setting in motion all the military alliances that had been woven in Europe in the preceding decades.
In fact, Russia itself was drawn into the conflict as a result of its pact
with Serbia. The First World War had just begun in Sarajevo.
Serbia was on the side of the victors in the Great War. This meant that the kingdom considerably
expanded its territories. At last, an independent Yugoslavia was a reality, a country that would
unite the South Slavs. But remember: the South Slavs were divided into a lot of different
ethnicities. And not all of them were clear that they wanted to belong to the same State.
In fact,
during World War II, Croats supported Hitler in order to create their own independent
Croatia. This is how one of the most bloodthirsty regimes in history came into being: the Ustaša.
[Side note: I won't go into details but the Ustaša was so brutal that even the
Nazis went so far as to try some of its top commanders for crimes
against humanity. But that's a subject for another video.]
The important thing is that, during World War II,
the partisans managed to drive the Nazis out of the area. And these partisans,
of communist ideology, had this man you see on the screen as their leader:
Josip Broz, better known as "Tito". From the very beginning it was clear to Marshal Tito
that his main task was to unite the various national groups in modern Yugoslavia. So
he recognized their rights by giving the status of Republic to Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia itself.
C1(In the old Yugoslavia national oppression by the great-Serb capitalist clique meant
strengthening the economic exploitation of the oppressed peoples. In the new, socialist
Yugoslavia the existing equality of rights for all nationalities has made it impossible
for one national group to impose economic exploitation upon another. Josip Broz "Tito")
And I know what you are thinking: as a good communist country,
Yugoslavia would be a satellite of Moscow, wouldn't it? Well,
nothing of the sort! Yugoslavia had liberated itself thanks to the partisan struggle.
And Tito rejected any interference from Moscow. In fact, for most of the 20th century, Yugoslavs were
the lucky ones: they could travel and do business with everybody; both capitalists and communists.
Yugoslavia was a socialist federation in which each republic had its own
parliament and a high level of autonomy. Decisions affecting the whole country
were made jointly by a council with a representative from each republic.
The Yugoslav Constitution of 1974 increased the autonomy within the Republic of Serbia
of the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina, which became represented in the Council of Yugoslavia.
This meant that these autonomous provinces had the same power in Yugoslavia as Serbia itself.
But wait a moment because not everything was so rosy! In 1980
Tito died. And Yugoslavia went into a brutal economic crisis. This included
hyperinflation of Venezuelan levels. And of course, when things are going well,
everybody is friends.... The Serbs, the Croats, the Slovenians, the Kosovars…
But when they go wrong, you think that the ruler in power is only
trying to benefit his own people and hurt yours.
In the late 1980s, Kosovo was a real powder keg. Kosovo Serbs felt oppressed by the ethnic
Albanian majority. At the head of Kosovo and its communist party were the Kosovo Albanians.
The conflict was already on the streets. In order to calm things down, the Serbian
Communist Party sent its second-in-command. And then Slobodan Milosevic came along. Then
the Kosovar Serbs said to him: hey, defend our rights because the Kosovar Albanians are
harassing us. Take a look. And boy, did they do
it! From then on Milosevic adopted a very popular nationalism among
the Serbian population. In 1989 he became president of the whole of Yugoslavia. One
of his first measures was to eliminate the autonomy of the provinces of Kosovo
and Vojvodina, winning their votes in the Council that governed Yugoslavia.
In view of the power accumulated by Serbian nationalism, Slovenia
and Croatia, the richest republics of Yugoslavia,
opted to declare their independence. And that is how the Balkan War began.
T2( THE YUGOSLAVIAN WAR)
The first republic to become independent was SLOVENIA. Few Serbs lived in Slovenia so there
were no major problems. Of course, there was a war with Yugoslavia but it lasted only 10 days.
However, the case of the Croats was very different. Croatia did have Serbs living
in its territory. So Belgrade sent the Yugoslav army to confront the Croats. The Croatian war
of independence lasted for years. It was quite a bloodbath. But nothing compared to BOSNIA.
In this case, we are talking about three sides fighting each other. The Bosniacs,
of Muslim religion, were fighting for survival. The others, encouraged by Serbia and Croatia,
wanted to divide up Bosnia; they were the Catholic
Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Serbs, who were eastern Orthodox Christians.
The Bosnian Serbs went so far as to create their own independent republic:
the SRPSKA republic. This is where the siege of SARAJEVO,
which many of you will surely remember from your childhood news broadcasts, came about.
This is when the UN decreed a no-fly zone. And who was defending Bosnia's airspace? Exactly!
NATO. That explains why in 1994, NATO shot down up to four Bosnian Serb planes.
And what did Russia think about it? Well, the truth is that they barely protested.
Come to think of it, Yeltsin had just bombed his own Russian parliament so he
had other matters to attend to. That explains statements like this one.
N1 (THE BOSNIA DILEMMA: Yeltsin Warns Serbs to Stop Attacks;
The Kremlin leader's sharply worded statement shows shift in attitude toward long-term allies.)
The thing is that the Bosnian Serbs are tougher than Wolverine's adamantium. They
saw no reason to stop the war. Not even after the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats
joined forces against them. They were winning. But in 1995 everything changed.
The Bosnian Croats gained the support of the Croatian Army. The Bosnian Serbs decided to
die by killing and then perpetrated the Srebrenica massacre, the biggest genocide of the Bosnian war.
As things were getting very ugly, NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force:
a 3-week air campaign that forced the Bosnian Serbs to negotiate. The Russians
protested but understood that it was the only way to end the war.
So Moscow participated along with the West in the negotiation of the Dayton Accords. At
last the Balkans breathed a sigh of relief. Well it is true that not all of them did.
For the Serbs, the Dayton Accords were like the Serbian version of the Treaty of Versailles,
the treaty signed after World War I that humiliated Germany and fueled
German ultranationalism. At the end of the day, a humiliating agreement.
N2(Bosnian Serbs Reject Dayton Agreement, Threaten Accord - AP)
But the story does not end there! The calm in the Balkans lasted until 1998.
Then a low-intensity war began between the Yugoslav forces and the Kosovo Albanians,
who wanted independence from Serbia.
The West punished Milosevic with international sanctions for his
repression in Kosovo. They had no effect. So NATO forced Belgrade to negotiate to return
Kosovo to autonomy. But Milosevic refused the involvement of international troops.
And this is where we come to the bombings Vladimir Putin was talking about. At this point,
NATO was then legitimized to bomb Yugoslavia without the approval of the UN. The bombings
lasted two and a half months and were condemned by Russia. In the end Milosevic surrendered and
Kosovo became a kind of UN protectorate. Over the years it ended up declaring its independence with
the approval of the West. Something used by Putin to validate the annexation of Crimea.
Russian forces participated in the international contingent that occupied
Kosovo. But they were on their own. In fact, the first armed clash between Russia and NATO
almost took place when the Russians went ahead and took over Pristina airport.
There were more than words but fortunately no one fired the first shot. Since then the
Balkans have endured a fragile balance of forces that could destabilize at
any moment. And more so with what is happening in Ukraine. Check it out.
T3(RUSSIA’S FRIENDS)
The invasion of Crimea taught us something that had seemed impossible: that the maps of Europe
can change at any time. Since then Serbia has increased its investment in Defense by 70%,
up to $1.4 billion a year. Coincidence? Here on VisualPolitik we know better. This is like
Paris Saint-Germain in soccer. You don't spend a million dollars and then not show off your power.
Serbia has just ordered two C295s from Airbus. It has previously negotiated
with Israel for the purchase of anti-tank missiles and with Turkey for the drones
that Azerbaijan took such advantage of to defeat Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.
It has also purchased Chinese combat drones, Russian helicopters and a
French surface-to-air missile system. In addition,
in recent years Russia and Belarus have donated 10 MIG-29 fighters. And the Kremlin also gave it
30 tanks and armored personnel carriers while selling it an air defense system.
Now, don't think that we’re saying: look how bad the Serbs are! Because the United States has also
given Black Hawk helicopters to Croatia. What we want to highlight is that yes, for
two decades the countries that made up the former Yugoslavia have been trying to rebuild themselves.
Some have done better than others. But they are also rearming. And Serbia is
spending more on its Army than Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia combined.
By itself this fact would mean nothing.
But last fall, over a minor disagreement with Kosovo, Belgrade sent warplanes near
the border and deployed armored vehicles to intimidate its former province.
But looking back at the wars of the past, more worrying is the rise of nationalist
discourse within the Serbian government. Listen to its Minister of the Interior,
Aleksander Vulin, at the so-called Assembly of All Serbs held at the end of May this year:
Allusions to creating a "Serbian world" are viewed with suspicion
by all countries in the area where there is a large Serb community. There
is a fear that this idea of a Greater Serbia will provoke a return to arms.
In any case, it is one thing that Serbia does not want to impose sanctions on Putin's Russia;
or that it has even taken advantage of the situation to obtain an agreement for
the supply of Russian gas under very advantageous conditions. It is quite
another thing for Serbia to take the initiative.
But this issue, the current situation in Serbia, its relations with Russia and also
with the European Union, is something we will discuss in an upcoming video that we
will upload very soon on VisualPolitik. Stay tuned because for sure there are
many things that will surprise you about this unusual Balkan country.
Belgrade officially still wants to join the European Union. And the
country is practically surrounded by NATO. Except for one place:
Bosnia-Herzegovina. A federal state in which Republika Srpska is an entity of its own.
We will talk about Bosnia soon here on VisualPolitik,
because it is a very special country. A country with three different presidents. And within that
country Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs has raised the tone.
He is threatening to break up the country. He has been doing so since last fall when
he met with the Russian foreign minister. Information came out of that meeting that
the Bosnian Serbs had asked Moscow for arms assistance. Listen to what Milorad Dodik says
about the independence of Republika Srpska. Another war in Europe would be a way to
destabilize the West. With Russia hit so hard by sanctions, we cannot rule out that
the Kremlin has put Bosnia in its sights. It is also true that, out of this whole story of how
the former Yugoslavia disintegrated, there is one real victim, and that is the Bosnians. But,
as I have already told you, we will talk about this in another video.
Because now the question is over to you: Do you think Russia is ready to
reopen old wounds in the Balkans? Do you see the possibility of war breaking out
again in the former Yugoslavia? You can leave me your answer in the comments.
And as always, don't forget that we release new videos every week
so subscribe to the channel so you don't miss any of our updates. If you liked this video,
LIKE it and see you in the next one. All the best and see you soon.