Los Angeles Times
February 14, 2008
Kosovo a frustration for Russia
By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
MOSCOW -- The looming independence of Kosovo and promises of quick U.S. and
European recognition have undercut and infuriated Russia at a moment when
this oil-rich behemoth is eager to show that its global clout has been
restored, analysts say.
Russian officials have spent weeks issuing dire assessments of the United
Nations-administered province's upcoming declaration of independence from
Serbia, expected to be made this weekend.
The Russians have repeatedly decried Kosovo's possible change in status as a
"Pandora's box" that would destabilize Europe by setting off a chain
reaction of shifting borders. They have blasted the West for embracing
Kosovo's independence without taking the matter to the U.N. Security
Council, on which Russia wields veto power.
But the world doesn't seem to be paying much attention, and underneath the
bluster Russia has found itself relatively powerless to steer the situation
to its liking. At a time Moscow is seeking to play the strongman again after
a decade of post-Soviet weakness, this sudden impotence is tough to stomach.
"The Russian position, in the end, will be humiliation," said Lilia
Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
In a last-ditch effort to stave off the declaration, Russia has called for
an emergency session of the Security Council. But the U.S. and many European
countries already have indicated their readiness to recognize Kosovo's
independence.
The European Union is preparing to send a 1,800-member security and justice
force to the province as early as this weekend, setting the stage for the
exit of U.N. officials, who have administered the area since 1999, when NATO
drove out Serbian troops seen as abusing Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanian
population. Russia and Serbia say the EU mission is illegal.
Kosovo's independence is sure to dramatically ramp up tensions between
Russia and the U.S., which are already at loggerheads over a proposed
American missile defense system, Iran's nuclear program and the aspirations
of several former Soviet republics to join the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. Some Russian analysts describe U.S. support for Kosovo's
ambitions as a blunder on a par with the invasion of Iraq.
"This will be used as yet another confirmation of the allegation that the
West is not playing by the rules, that international law is applied very
selectively, that there's a lot of hypocrisy in the Western position," said
Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation, a Moscow-based
think tank. "It's yet another manifestation that it's difficult, if not
impossible, to deal with the West on serious matters."
Russian officials have alluded without elaboration to a "contingency plan"
they will put into effect if Kosovo proclaims independence.
Moscow also has hinted that it may eventually retaliate by recognizing the
independence of breakaway regions of Georgia along Russia's border. At its
worst, that could set off armed conflict with Georgia -- and deepen neo-Cold
War tensions with the U.S., Georgia's ally.
"We can't help but take into consideration the fact that [breakaway
republics friendly to Russia] regard this as a precedent and pin their hopes
on Russia," said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for Political
Studies in Moscow. "Russia is now thinking whether to declare a complete
independence of those countries or de facto incorporate them into Russia."
Russian officials have been careful to say that they will not immediately
recognize the independence of the republics -- but they have also mentioned
the regions repeatedly and elaborately avoided ruling out the step.
Residents of those lands have eagerly heard the message.
"Why doesn't it also apply to us? Why can't we do the same thing?" Abkhazian
presidential spokesman Kristian Bzhania said in a phone interview this week.
"The recognition of the independence of Kosovo will, directly or indirectly,
lead to the declaration of independence of Abkhazia as well."
But the fate of the republics is just a small slice of Moscow's cataclysmic
view of Kosovo's independence. Russian officials raise the possibility of
wholesale border changes and clashes over territory throughout Europe -- for
example, in the Basque Country in Spain and even Scotland in Britain -- and
the degradation of the United Nations.
Speaking in Geneva this week, Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov warned that
historians would one day regard the independence of Kosovo as "the beginning
of the end of the current European project."
"How can one bless the unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence,
bypassing the Security Council, and at the same time hope that the Security
Council will go on tackling other problems as if nothing is happening?" he
asked.
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said recently, "This can seriously
damage the whole system of international law and will have negative
implications both for the Balkans and for stability in other world regions."
The sentimental and strategic link between Russia and the Slavic and
Orthodox Serbia is old and deep. In recent years, Serbia has loomed as a
symbolic cause among Russians, a bellwether of Moscow's power as an
international actor.
A weakened Russia's inability to protect Serbia from a massive U.S. bombing
campaign in 1999 remains a bitter and emblematic memory among many Russians.
But this is not Boris N. Yeltsin's Russia. Afloat on oil and gas wealth,
today's Russia is eager to burst back onto the world stage as an
international power broker. Moscow has built up ties with China, facilitated
Iran's nuclear program and dabbled in Middle East peace talks.
"We'll never accept Kosovo's independence until the moment Serbia does,"
said Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute for Strategic
Assessment think tank.
"We'll never accept Kosovo as a member of the United Nations. As a permanent
member of the Security Council, we'll block it by all possible instruments."
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