Since its invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has waged a robust disinformation and influence campaign in the Balkans. Over the past few years, the Russians have steadily ramped up their activity in southeast Europe, analysts told The Cipher Brief.
The West does not have “coherent policies” to address this, said Kurt Bassuener, co-founder of the Democratization Policy Council in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital. But there is growing momentum in the West.
“Since this president [Donald Trump] took office and signaled that we were exiting the diplomatic playing field, Russia has gone into the Balkans with gangbusters,” said Senator Chris Murphy, the junior Democratic senator from Connecticut, at the nomination hearing for U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman in September.
“They [the Russians] have started buying up all sorts of media sources,” Murphy said.
Spearheaded mainly by the Kremlin-backed Sputnik news organization, the Russian information campaigns in the Balkans seek to boost Kremlin-friendly politicians – many of whom could be considered authoritarian – including Milorad Dodik, the President of the Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The information space in the Balkans has one narrative – and that’s Russia,” said John Cappello, a former defense official based in the Balkans and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Sputnik provides pretty much all defense and security news to mainstream media in the Balkans, Cappello said, and Sputnik since 2014 has had an operation based in Serbia. Former Albanian Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu told The Cipher Brief he just received information that Sputnik is also opening a section in Tirana, Albania’s capital.
Cappello is now working with local reporters to create a network of fact-based, unbiased media reporting in the Balkans.
Both the EU and Russia view the Balkans as their own ‘backyard.’ As a result, Russia’s media campaign there is aimed at preventing countries in the region from joining the western alliances of NATO and the European Union, experts told The Cipher Brief.
When Montenegro, for example, appeared to be moving closer to NATO membership last year, Russia allegedly took part in an attempted coup to overthrow and kill the western-oriented prime minister, with the goal of bringing a pro-Russia party to power. In February, Montenegro’s chief special prosecutor for the failed coup, Milivoje Katnic, said Montenegro officials have evidence that Russia’s Federal Security Service was involved in the attempt. Now, a group of Russian and Serb nationalists are on trial in Montenegro, in connection with the coup plot.
Montenegro joined NATO this June, and Russia now appears to be focusing on non-NATO Balkan countries. The Russians want “to create a military alliance in the region, to have it as a buffer zone against NATO enlargement,” said Mediu.
The alliance would include “all the Balkan countries which were left out of NATO, like Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Mediu said.
Russia already has a “kind of military base” in Serbia, noted Mediu. It is technically an emergency coordination center, but the Russians have advocated for diplomatic status for the entity for a number of years. Dodik is “also angling to have a Russian emergency response base” in the de-facto capital of the Republika Srpska, Banja Luka, said Bassuener.
Some analysts say a Russian military alliance in the Balkans is unlikely.
“That is a shot too far,” said Dimitar Bechev, Director of the European Policy Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria. “Even Serbia, which is formally neutral and cooperates with Russia, has a strong relationship with NATO and [the] U.S. on security and defense,” said Bechev, who is the author of a new book on Russia in the Balkans called Rival Power.
Last year, Serbia held around 125 military-to-military exchanges with the United States, compared to only four with Russia, said Cappello, who is the former U.S. Air Force and Acting Defense Attaché to Serbia. Out of 26 Serbian training exercises in 2016, only two were with Russia.
Still, Russia transferred six MiG-29 fighter jets to Serbia earlier this month.
The Russians “have sold to Serbia arms and equipment which are not just for defense purposes,” said Mediu, adding that “their military intelligence is pretty strong in the region.” Mediu noted that when he was Defense Minister, the Russians tried to recruit some Albanian military personnel.
The West is responding. NATO this week launched a multinational Black Sea force in Romania, which complements a separate deployment of 900 U.S. troops who are already stationed there.
“We are sending a very clear message: NATO is here, NATO is strong and NATO is united,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said about the deployment.
President Trump, after signaling on the campaign trail that he may not adhere to NATO’s collective defense clause if NATO member states do not spend more on their own defense, has since said he does support NATO and Article 5 – the collective defense clause.
During Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Montenegro in August, he told Balkan leaders at the Adriatic Charter Summit that NATO's door would always be open “for those European countries that share our values, contribute to the common defense, and strive to achieve security, prosperity, and freedom for their people.”
Pence’s visit “was a clear sign that America still wants to be present and keep the influence in the region,” said Mediu.
But some disagree. Bechev said he “can’t see Trump’s administration – especially with the State Department in disarray – playing a prominent role” in the region. He acknowledged that a “push from Congress” would help.
At Huntsman’s nomination hearing, Sen. Murphy said that Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the senior Democratic senator from New Hampshire, are, along with other senators, keeping an eye on increased Russian interference in the Balkans.
“The Balkans is an example of…when we leave a vacuum behind, things happen,” said Murphy.
Kaitlin Lavinder is a reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @KaitLavinder.
