Serbia Is Taking a Page Out of Russia’s Book

Before being ousted in Montenegro’s presidential runoff election on April 2, incumbent President Milo Djukanovic sounded the alarm about a revival of Serbian efforts to establish a “Serbian world” in the Balkans, linked to the ideology driving Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The ‘Russian world’ project in the Balkans is called ‘Serbian world,’” Djukanovic warned before being ousted, arguing that Serbia views Yugoslavia’s successor states in the same way that Russia views post-Soviet independent states: ripe for political control and even annexation.

Over the past several decades, the idea of a “Russian world” has shaped how Russia sees the populations of former Soviet countries. The Russian language, Orthodox Christianity, and a common culture and history are all viewed by Moscow as ties that outlived the collapse of the Soviet Union. More than three decades later, Moscow still sees these countries as belonging to its sphere of influence despite being independent states—a perception shaping policy. President Vladimir Putin justified Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea by referring in essence to the effort to reclaim the Russian world. His 2022 invasion of Ukraine seeks to reestablish “the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.”

The Russian world reflects a tension between “actual Russian Federation state borders and the mental maps of ‘Russianness’ that exist in the minds of many Russians,” said Igor Zevelev, a global fellow at the Wilson Center. The concept of the Russian world, Zevelev said, “allows Moscow to keep boundaries vague, at least rhetorically, with uncertain consequences for regional security.” Timothy Garton Ash recently observed that “the ideology of a Russian world was always closely associated with the Russian imperial project, the Russian Orthodox Church … and autocracy.”

Similarly, the idea of a Serbian world casts doubts on the borders of Yugoslavia’s successor states and aims at their reunification. The concept was first articulated in September 2020 by Serbia’s then-defense minister, Aleksandar Vulin. At that time, Vulin stated that Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, “should establish a Serbian world. Belgrade should unite all the Serbs. President of Serbia is president of all Serbs.”

Vulin’s views were not a gaffe. Serbia’s national security strategy of 2021 stated that the country’s objective is the “preservation of the existence and protection of the Serbian people wherever they live.” In other words, Serbia considers itself responsible for promoting and guaranteeing the political interests of Serbs living outside its borders.

Most ominously, this strategy declared that the “preservation of Republika Srpska is one of the foreign policy priorities of the Republic of Serbia.” Republika Srpska is an administrative entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina, a result of the Dayton peace accord hammered out in late 1995. Serbia and Republika Srpska are allowed to have “special parallel relations” under the Dayton Agreement; what is a cause for concern is that Serbia is taking it upon itself to defend a part of Bosnia’s territory. Perhaps in no other country’s national security strategy is its interference in a neighboring state so officially laid out—and well received. Last weekend, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik called for a unification of Republika Srpska and Serbia, adding that “this century is one of Serbian unification.”

Former Bosniak member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency Sefik Dzaferovic warned in 2021 that talk by Serbian politicians of a Serbian world was reminiscent of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s “Greater Serbia” project: the effort to incorporate all Serbs into one state which brought years of war and suffering to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dzaferovic’s colleague in the presidency, Bosnian Croat Zeljko Komsic, told the European Parliament in March 2022 that the “Serbian world was identical to the so-called Russian world” in scope, aims, and strategic reasoning.

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As if to show his commitment to Serbia’s overreach, Vulin—as interior minister—declared in June 2022 that “the formation of the Serbian world is a process that cannot be stopped.” The following month, he was even more direct: “I dream of the unification of Serbs, just as all my ancestors dreamed of it,” adding, “I know that one day it will be completed, peacefully, without violence and conflict.”

Vulin even called for the unification of all Serbs in the Balkans “in one state,” though how exactly he plans to redraw borders and incorporate Serbs living in other independent states without violence remains unclear. In emphasizing that borders are vague and fluid, he echoes proponents of a Russian world, such as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who also think post-Soviet borders are vague and accordingly take it upon themselves to redraw them. In July 2022, Lavrov said that Russia’s military goals in Ukraine would expand beyond the country’s eastern regions, adding that at the invasion’s five-month mark “the geography is different.” Vulin met with Lavrov when he visited Moscow the following month.

Taken together, Serbia’s 2021 national security strategy and Vulin’s 2022 statements are cause for concern. Even more worryingly, Vulin served under Slobodan Milosevic’s wife, Mira Markovic, in the 1990s, has visited Milosevic’s grave on the anniversary of his death, and pays homage to the former Serbian leader. Vulin’s rhetoric and his living link with the Milosevic years have raised suspicions in Bosnia that the Serbian world is, as political scientist Jasmin Mujanovic termed it, “‘Greater Serbia’ 2.0.” Vulin’s boss, Vucic, also served under Milosevic in the 1990s and has not disowned the idea of a Serbian world.

Though the idea is gaining institutional support, many in the region saw Djukanovic as a brake on it. This month, though, 36-year-old economist Jakov Milatovic won 60 percent of the vote to Djukanovic’s 40 percent, becoming Montenegro’s new president. On the surface, these election results may seem like nothing out of the ordinary: A veteran politician long accused of corruption was replaced by a youthful candidate with international credentials promising change.

But Djukanovic’s defeat is a major victory for those who believe in a Serbian world and support its aims, because it removes barriers to Belgrade’s influence in Montenegro. Djukanovic had been critical of the rising rhetoric of the Serbian world idea and the danger it poses for the rest of the Balkans, lamenting the West’s failure to respond to Vulin’s aggressive rhetoric. After elections in August 2020, a coalition of opposition parties formed a government, turning him into a lame-duck president. On April 2, this array of anti-Djukanovic parties joined forces to oust him.

Milatovic, who got his start in politics as an economic development minister in a coalition government of pro-Serbia, pro-Serbian Orthodox Church parties, won the election with the support of Andrija Mandic, one of the leaders of Montenegro’s pro-Serbian Democratic Front. Mandic, who ran against Djukanovic in the election’s first round, was tried in 2019 for his alleged role in an attempted coup joining Serbs, Russians, and Montenegrins in overthrowing Montenegro’s government. He flanked Milatovic during his victory speech as supporters in the streets greeted the new president with Serbian flags.

Djukanovic’s defeat also opens the door for Serbia’s religious influence in Montenegro. The runoffs featured a clash between the Serbian Orthodox Church and Montenegro’s Orthodox Church. The Belgrade-based Serbian Orthodox Church holds jurisdiction throughout Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro, and its control over properties in Montenegro —which Djukanovic opposed—was at stake on April 2. Djukanovic’s ouster will reduce the power of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church in its own country, strengthening the Serbian church’s hand even more.

Milatovic himself has dismissed the idea of a Serbian world, but observers in Montenegro perceive that his victory enables it. Seki Radoncic, a journalist based in Montenegro, sees the new president as a “puppet” of Belgrade, stating that Milatovic represents a Greater Serbia to Montenegro. Senad Pecanin, a lawyer and journalist based in Sarajevo, recently observed that Serbia will do away with Montenegro’s identity and “may change the character of its statehood.” And Avdo Avdic, an investigative journalist in Sarajevo, weighed in that “the Serbian world now has access to the sea.” He meant that Serbia, through its control over Montenegro, has gained access to the Adriatic Sea, which it lost when Montenegro opted for independence in 2006.

With Milatovic in power, Montenegro will keep its territorial integrity but lose the political independence Djukanovic helped secure for it. The 61-year-old veteran politician dominated Montenegro’s politics for over three decades and was first elected prime minister at the age of 29. In the 1990s, he was in league with Milosevic as he launched his wars of conquest on Croatia and Bosnia. When he saw that Milosevic’s fortunes were declining, Djukanovic distanced himself from the strongman and chartered his own course, eventually leading Montenegro to independence from Serbia.

He has since become a champion of a pro-Western Montenegro and presided over its closer integration with the European Union. In 2017, Montenegro joined NATO. At home, ethnic minority rights were largely respected. Djukanovic was happy to declare his country a leader in the European integration process in the Balkans.

With Djukanovic gone, fears of a rising Serbian world are spreading beyond Montenegro. Serbian officials in Bosnia are effectively blocking the country’s NATO accession. In a Serbian world, key political and military decisions about states in which ethnic Serbs live outside Serbia would be made in Belgrade, negating the independence of post-Yugoslav successor states and placing Serbia as the center of political gravity in the Balkans. True to form, Bosnia’s Serb member of the presidency, Zeljka Cvijanovic, mandated that the Bosnian Armed Forces must hold exercises with Serbia before they can do so with Germany and the United States.

What “Greater Serbia” failed to achieve by brute force in the 1990s may now be attempted by hybrid means. Political state capture from within independent states, rather than military incursion, seems to be Serbia’s preferred method for pursuing the dream of a Serbian world. For now.