Introduction
Russia’s war against Ukraine has had political and strategic repercussions in the Western Balkans, creating a context in which Serbian dreams of expansion have been revived, albeit in a less ambitious form than were pursued by President Slobodan Milošević in the initial phase of the 1991-1995 War of Yugoslav Succession. Among the effects of the war in Ukraine is a pervasive sense that many things have become possible and, in particular, Belgrade’s earlier program to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina and to re-establish its hegemony in Kosovo seems now to be revived, though conversations in Belgrade and Banja Luka (the latter, the capital of the Serb-controlled part of Bosnian-Herzegovina known as the Republika Srpska or RS) revolve around fantasies of conjoining only the RS, rather than all of Bosnia-Herzegovina (as Milošević attempted in the first years of the 1990s),1 with Serbia. In Kosovo, Prime Minister Albin Kurti has expressed concern that there is a grave risk of armed conflict with Serbia.2 NATO Councils take this risk seriously and, already in March, declared that the alliance was “ready to intervene if stability would be endangered.”3 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated this pledge in mid-August 2022, noting that NATO already had more than 3,700 peacekeeping troops in Kosovo and was prepared, if necessary, to “move forces, deploy them where needed and increase our presence.”4
