Historically, Russia has treated the Balkans as an area solidly within its sphere of vital interests, and that is still the case today. While individual Balkan countries are not especially important geostrategic players in Europe, their location imparts to them a greater, even possibly exaggerated, significance in Russian thinking. Moreover, Western anxiety about the area has grown with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, military buildup in the Black Sea and the possibility of further military action involving Russia’s satellite “proto-state” in the Moldovan separatist region of Transnistria—or even an attack on Moldova. Moscow uses every instrument of power it possesses in …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation
