Ethnic Serbs erect more roadblocks as tensions soar in Kosovo
Al JazeeraMAY 2023
This conflict has been turned into another proxy war waged by the West over energy. With memories of NATO's bombing of Belgrade in the 1990s still fresh and the US and EU's current backing of Ukraine, it's no wonder Serbia has been looking eastward for both financial and political support. Europe, however, knows it has an economic stranglehold on Serbia, which is why it's pressing the Balkan state so hard to ditch Russia and China and succumb to the progressive green energy plans of Brussels and Berlin.
Russia's war in Ukraine has prompted valid concerns that Moscow's ally Serbia could play the same card against Kosovo, especially given that neither country recognizes Kosovo as a sovereign state and both share aggressive political rhetoric. The main difference between the fate of Kyiv and Pristina lies in the presence of NATO forces in Kosovo, which has so far deterred Belgrade from waging armed conflict and restrained it from disinformation tactics and propaganda.