Russo-Serbian Ties Based on Genocide

Serbia has been sympathetic to Russia, despite the Russian aggression against Ukraine, declining to join some of the measures being taken against the tyrannical regime led by ex-Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Putin. Serbia and ethnic Serbs living in other States that gained independence from Yugoslavia have sympathy toward Russia because of ties as fellow Orthodox Christians and Slavs, but also because the Russian Federation supported the Serbs and their nationalist ambitions during the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia after 1990. Yugoslavia, which was dominated by Serbia, was led by a Communist, Slobodan Milosevic, who fomented ethnic divisions in a failed effort to retain Serbian domination and to hold onto power as dictator, which led to the Yugoslav breakup. Orthodox Serbia wanted to hold onto Catholic or Muslim-majority Republics or provinces or where other Slavic languages were spoken by other Orthodox. Some Serbs or ethnic Serbs backed by Serbia engaged in what they called “ethnic cleansing,” which was a euphemism for the genocidal killing or forced removal of other ethnic groups. More than 100,000 people were killed because of Milosevic and other Serb nationalists in a series of wars over a decade. The “Butcher of Belgrade” was later prosecuted for crimes against humanity before his death and other Serbian or ethnic Serbian leaders were convicted. Serbia is also being hostile to Kosovo, a breakaway province inhabited mostly by Albanian Muslims recognized by the United States and most NATO and European Union members, but which Serbia refused to recognize. Kosovo is seeking EU membership as a form of protection against Serbian ambition. Kosovo should be considered, but Serbia should never be admitted until it renounces its extreme ethno-nationalism, which the continued Serbian loyalty for Russian support of Serbian genocide proves they have failed ever to do, especially as Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine, as part of Putin’s strategy of denying Ukrainian national identity in order to violate Ukraine’s Russian-recognized independence, sovereignty and self-determination.