Kurti: Putin Is Exploiting Serbia in His Confrontation with EU and NATO

Albin Kurti (BETAPHOTO/HINA/Lana SLIVAR DOMINIC)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said on June 12 that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was turning towards the Kremlin, where both “his affection and his fear” lay, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin is exploiting both Vucic and Serbia.

“Russia’s despotic President Putin wants to use Serbia to demonstrate that a country outside the European Union and NATO can also function successfully. That is highly damaging to the continent and to stability in our region,” Kurti said in an interview with the Austrian daily Die Presse.

Kurti said that a Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Centre already operates in Nis, 160 kilometres from Pristina, housing 3,000 people for “so-called crisis situations,” while Belgrade is hosting the regional centers of the Russian RT and Sputnik media outlets, adding that “a hybrid war is already under way.”

“During the elections in Kosovo, RT and Sputnik broadcast reports against our government every day. There are no longer any parallel Serbian structures in Kosovo capable of destabilizing us from within. However, attacks from the outside are likely. Should Putin decide to escalate the situation in Eastern Europe, he could use Serbia as a proxy,” Kurti said. Asked about the normalization of relations with Belgrade, which remains the main obstacle to Kosovo’s progress towards the EU, Kurti said that he and Vucic concluded an agreement in 2023, but that the Serbian president is not honoring it.