Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) will successfully overcome the challenges posed by Russia, because they have survived even bigger ones, said the dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Sarajevo, Sead Turčalo, and the former president of the Parliament of Montenegro, Ranko Krivokapić, says that he is an optimist, i.e. that societies in the region will mature and emerge better.
Turčalo and Krivokapić said this in the proudcast, which the Center for Civic Education (CGO) realizes in partnership with the MINA agency and the Fridrih Ebert Foundation (FES).
Krivokapić, answering the question of whether Montenegro will succeed in defeating the Russian soft power, assessed that the Montenegrin state's staying power is enormous.
"The smallest state, even in the time when one hand was one saber, so it survived for a thousand years. This is the maturing of Montenegrin society," Krivokapić said.
As he said, in order to overcome the dangers, including the Russian one, it is necessary to govern well and develop the civil state and the rule of law. According to Krivokapić, Serbia is only a tool of Russia and nothing more at this stage.
"But I see this as a chance for us to be a better society after all, because this will fix those who have fallen from power, and I reckon that those in power will also go through the same catharsis that the Democratic Party of Socialists went through, from Milosevic's allies to the European forces." , said Krivokapić.
He emphasized that he is an optimist and that a stronger cohesion of citizens of Montenegro will emerge. "And that clero-nationalism, clero-fascism that spills over from big Serbia to little Montenegro will only be painful... That's how nations mature, and much bigger than us," said Krivokapić, adding that some had to go through fascism and Nazism in order to mature.
"Although those who watch this sickening state and return to the 90s can hardly bear it. When the elites do not have the strength to lead on a path that is safe, and that they do not want to see because it is more difficult, pay the price as we are paying now", said Krivokapić.
He characterized the current approach of the EU leadership as Chamberlain's before the Second World War, noting that, nevertheless, it is moving towards Churchill's.
"And many will be unpleasantly surprised, from those who robbed their people, when that Churchillian policy suddenly becomes obvious. So, with all these sufferings, which are enormous and threats to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, I think this is part of the overall maturing of political awareness in the EU and in the Balkans and NATO," Krivokapić added.
Turčalo said that, like Krivokapić, he is very optimistic in the case of Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, because both countries have survived great challenges.
"These are transitory categories. What is needed is a stronger institutional awareness of those who are committed, both in one and the other country, to the sovereignty of that country, and then I think we will be able to solve the challenge posed by Russia", Turčalo assessed.
According to him, Russia is too far away to be able to do something more than staging and what they tried in Montenegro in 2016.
"It is a danger that Russia can pose with the help of domestic actors, but I think that both countries will come out of this story in the right way," Turčalo added.
When asked what are the lines and ways of Russia's influence in the Western Balkans and what is their reach, he replied that that country, with very little investment and time, has at its disposal official institutions and political structures through which it can exert influence in the entire region.
"We detected approximately four groups through which Russia exerts influence - these are various veteran organizations, "cultural" and "educational" associations, then those institutions that in the political paradigm are associated with this phenomenon of Kosovo and the Republika Srpska entity," Turčalo said.
As he pointed out, there are also organizations that are directly supported and financed by Russia, as some kind of advanced Russian agencies.
Krivokapić, answering the question of how they see Russia's current influence on socio-political relations in Montenegro and what are the key mediums of spreading that influence, said that the agencies have not fundamentally changed since the diplomatic relations between that country and Montenegro date back, but only mutatis mutandis and somewhat model the elements of that influence as the whole system of possible influences is modernized.
He said that even the European Union (EU) in the resolution on foreign interference in democratic processes, adopted by the European Parliament in 2022, named the Russian Church as an element of division in the Balkans and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) as a key tool.
"Russia's influence is dominantly through parapolitical organizations, in fact in Montenegro directly anti-state organizations, such as the SPC, which is more loyal to Russia than to Serbia, if a pro-Western government is in power in Serbia," said Krivokapić.
As he added, while autocracies, despotisms and crime are in power, which inevitably goes with autocracies, there will be no changes.
According to him, that influence is not malignant, it is extremely dangerous, because it goes with crime. "Crime invests in political parties, which then come to power and do what is happening in the Balkans," he explained.
"Whether it's the start-up Serbian Progressive Party, whether it's startups in Montenegro, is less important. Will it be someone else in Bosnia and Herzegovina, possibly in Croatia and Slovenia someone third and fourth, in North Macedonia someone fifth, sixth, but that is the pattern," said Krivokapić.
He said that it is clear that weak states, which still have a hard time dealing with classic, let alone crime that has political, logistical, intelligence and any other support, are facing serious security problems.
However, as he said, those who know the original part of civil Montenegro also know that it is a solvable problem.
"If you ask me how we can solve the matter quickly, I will make a proposal - let them offer the status of an associate witness to Milo Božović, and he will say who he financed from the current government to become a party and become the government, and in agreement with whom he did it," he said. Krivokapic.
According to him, Western democracies have a kind of honest naivety.
"They cannot believe that if you have a court, a prosecutor, an intelligence service, that all these systems will fall under some foreign influence and that they will all be taken over. But, unfortunately, that's how it is in the Balkans after the breakup of the state," Krivokapić added.
"What has been created in the Western Balkans is not yet a state in the full sense of the word, because in order to have a state, justice should be its foundation. These were once (were) captive states from the domestic authorities, and now they are already enslaved and captive states, by a combination of the domestic authority that carries out some sort of extortion and the foreign one that carries out enslavement through these criminalized authorities," Krivokapić assessed.
He said that it is an old and well-known thesis that if someone is interested in autocracy, he goes into corruption, and then he cannot go to the West. "If you steal a billion, two, three, what are the estimates in our neighborhood that some autocrats have stolen for now, then you cannot go west, your natural path is east among despots," Krivokapić added.
According to him, those naiveties that sometimes exist "that you will please them by letting them steal a little more in order to cooperate a little more on some other things" are paid for by the nations, security and ultimately the Euro-Atlantic partnership and the EU.
Turčalo, answering the question why Moscow fears the entry of the Western Balkans into the EU, said that it was naive to believe at the beginning that Russia was opposed only to NATO integration.
He added that ten years ago, he claimed that Russia was opposed to both European and NATO integration, and that it turned out to be true.
"On the same line of speech of the Russian ambassador to Montenegro, the Russian ambassador to Serbia, who was previously the ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who, when Bosnia and Herzegovina received candidate status, said that it was a dangerous path for Bosnia and Herzegovina," said Turčalo.
As he said, a great opportunity for Bosnia and Herzegovina would be if it were finally recognized that part of the government from the Republika Srpska entity does not want European integration, and then they would have a cleaner political field.
He assessed that, in essence, the EU is more or less a hostage to itself and its inability to grow into a geopolitical entity, but that it is becoming aware that enlargement is a geopolitical necessity.
"Which means that probably in two, three decades we will have the awareness that it is necessary, if it really wants to act as a geopolitical actor, to behave geopolitically," said Turčalo.
According to him, the EU, unfortunately, does not succeed in this and that is the reason why, when it comes to the field in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region, it very often loses.
"And it loses primarily because it is difficult to get beyond that technocratic approach, because what is important in the region is that at some point you also use the geopolitics of emotions," Turčalo said and pointed out that Russia used it brilliantly in Montenegro. Serbia and other countries of the region.
"And we see that essentially the EU itself must begin to understand that the Western Balkans functions a little differently in some segments, and that we should look at the Western Balkans from the perspective of the Western Balkans, not only and exclusively from the perspective of Brussels," said Turčalo.
Asked to comment on the survey of the International Republican Institute, according to which 19 percent of respondents, Montenegrin citizens, see the United States of America (USA) as the biggest threat among the mentioned countries, he said that political discourse produces reality, although the opposite is often thought - that reality shapes the discourse.
He assessed that today "Montenegro is deviating from its foreign policy in its foreign policy".
"Here is the vote in the Council of Europe. We will see what the behavior will be according to the Resolution in the General Assembly of the United Nations", said Turčalo.
All these, as he said, are indicators that there is one foreign policy on paper and one that is actually implemented.
"As Mr. Krivokapić said, and I illustrate it a little differently, you can never come to the west through the east. Those who entered deep into those structures and who owe their position to the east, actually don't want to go west," Turčalo added.
When asked to comment on Prime Minister Milojko Spajić's lack of interest in responding to the statement of the Russian ambassador to Montenegro, Krivokapić said "he is not disinterested, but he must not announce himself".
"You know, when the Prime Minister is not allowed to say anything to the son of a man who is on the US blacklist, that's all. If you could say "no" to Russia when the people were dying of hunger, and now you silence the son of the outgoing president of Republika Srpska, that says it all," Krivokapić said.
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