"Is Russia opening a second front in the Balkans?" - is the headline brought by the Swiss daily Noah Zircher Zeitung. Journalist Andreas Ernst writes: "In the last ten years, the dispute between Serbia and Kosovo has flared up again and again. The trigger was usually new border regimes for people or goods. document - was the unresolved relationship between Belgrade and Pristina".
"Serbia still does not recognize that the former southern province declared independence in 2008. The normalization agreement signed by both sides in 2013 has been implemented only sporadically. Instead, politicians routinely talk about the danger from the other side and rattle their guns a bit. And then everything calms down again. But the geopolitical framework in which the rehearsed conflicts are played out has now changed. Moscow's war against Ukraine and its uncertain outcome in the West have caused a sense that danger looms beyond the Balkans. Russia looks like a Joker who could influence to a murky situation".
"Will Vladimir Putin open a second front in the Balkans in order to throw European resistance off balance? At first glance, this does not seem impossible. Serbian President Vučić categorically refuses to impose sanctions on Russia. And Moscow supplies Serbia with cheaper gas, while others turn off their gas taps." .
"Among the Serbian public, the Russian president still enjoys great sympathy. She does not consider this war an aggression, but a tragic war between brothers. Seen from that perspective, in the beginning it was not Putin's neo-imperialism, but America that carried out the expansion of NATO to the East all the way to Ukraine ".
"Putin, admittedly, is trying to use Serbian leverage, but with limited success. He verbally supports the Serbian cause and gives discounts on gas, and sometimes on weapons. But Moscow does not trust the Serbs. And rightly so. Because Vučić is flirting with to the Russians (and the Chinese) in order to have an alternative for rapprochement with the EU - and at the same time remain interesting for it. Ultimately, the relative situation in the country and Vučić's future depend on economic relations with the EU, not on Russian gas."
"The situation would become much more dangerous if Russia subjugated Ukraine - and if the defense front of the EU would be shaken. If Serbia's neighbors Hungary and Bulgaria were to leave the machine and the EU lost weight as a regional force of order, the door would be open for a dangerous realignment in the Balkans It would not have passed peacefully in the time of Great Serbian and Great Albanian pretensions - even without the direct interference of Russia".
"What can Europe do? It should do everything so that Ukraine does not lose the war. It must prevent Russia's sphere of influence from expanding significantly to the West. The European framework of order in which the Balkans are integrated must be preserved. And within that framework, the EU and The US needs to take matters into its own hands."
"The negotiation process between Serbia and Kosovo should be intensified in order to implement the agreement from 2013. In Bosnia, which is disintegrating as if in slow motion, the electoral law reform must be continued with international assistance. The long-term perspective is even more important: countries "After fulfilling the catalog of reforms, the Western Balkans should urgently be admitted to the EU common market. This would definitely close the space for those who spoil the game," writes Andreas Ernst, a journalist from the Swiss Neue Zircher Zeitung.
The main refugee route again through Serbia
Under the title "On the run again", the German daily Rheinische Post reports on "the increasing number of people who are moving to the West in the shadow of the war in Ukraine. They are not only tormented by border fences and unscrupulous smugglers, but also by a lack of understanding for their plight." .
Journalist Tomas Rozer visited the refugee camp in Subotica, which is completely overloaded, and there he learned that the refugee camps in the south of Serbia are half empty - despite the efforts of the hosts to sort out the newcomers - because everyone wants to go to the north of the country, near the border.
Since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, the number of migrants on the Balkan route has increased noticeably.
"In the first six months, the EU agency Frontex registered 55.321 illegal border crossings for the route that leads through the Western Balkans - which is an increase of 191 percent compared to last year."
The German journalist also spoke with Radoš Đurović, the director of the center for the protection of asylum seekers from Belgrade, who believes that "refugees from Ukraine divert the public's attention from events on the Balkan route" and that refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, but also India and Africa.
"The main route currently leads through Greece and North Macedonia to Serbia," says Đurović. From there, a part of the refugees in transit goes via Hungary, and the other via Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia – to the West. Only a small number manage to pass directly across the Serbian-Croatian border. Although Budapest has announced that it will increase patrols and fences, since the beginning of the year there has been an increased trend towards the Hungarian border."
In a long text, Thomas Roser explains how in Serbia there is resistance of a large number of people towards refugees, often because of smuggling gangs that clash with each other, as was the case on July 3: "In a bloody showdown between competing smuggling gangs, one Afghan was killed , and seven people were wounded, some seriously - among them a 16-year-old girl. Because of migrants day and night in fear - that's how the headline published in Novosti read.
Due to citizens' protests, the "national populist government in Belgrade" carried out a decisive action and arrested a group of refugees, with the message of the Minister of the Interior Aleksandar Vulin that "Serbia is not a parking lot for migrants" and that he will not allow it to become a place for "bandits and scum from all over Asia".
Radoš Đurović reminds that "smuggling gangs are recruited not only from the ranks of foreign, but also domestic criminals, but the impression is constantly created in the public that the problem is migrants and refugees. They are the first victims of smuggling gangs".
"In Europe, a clear distinction is made between refugees on the Balkan route and those from Ukraine," says Đurović.
"On the one hand, interest in the plight of Ukrainians is greater due to the intensive media coverage of the war there. On the other hand, refugees from Ukraine are perceived as Europeans from the same cultural space, with the same religion and the same appearance. So it is easier for them and they have priority ".
"In the shadow of the war in Ukraine, the movement towards the West has increased on the Balkan route. But the consequences of the war, as Đurović says, threaten to hit the refugees on that route the hardest. He says: If Serbia slips into recession, the refugees will feel it more than others", is the quote with which the author Tomas Rozer ends his reportage from Serbia published in the daily Rajniše post.
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