RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IN SOUTHERN EUROPE Anton Bendarzsevszkij In the last years, alarm bells have started to ring among Western organisations: Russia is gaining influence in Southern Europe—mostly in the Balkans—challenging European values, leading massive disinformation campaigns, and destabilising the political situation in the countries in question. These worries are partly true: in the last fifteen years, Russia has tightened its grip on the region, successfully infiltrating the Balkans through large-scale investments and the energy sector and by using the toolkit of soft power and political ties. On the other hand, Russia has faced a series of failures in Southern Europe in the last years: recent NATO enlargements and the ongoing Eurointegration process in the region significantly reduced its room for manoeuvre. Moscow cannot compete with the European Union (EU) and NATO in terms of financial opportunities and security, while the Balkans, especially, are a ground of high competition among regional and great powers. Thus, the main strategies of Russia currently consist of preventing the further expansion of NATO and slowing down the region’s accession to the European Union. STRATEGIC INTERESTS Traditionally, Russia maintains good relations with Italy; still, in Southern Europe, the main area of Russia’s interests is the Balkans. It is an important region, based on numerous strategic, geopolitical, cultural, and economic reasons. Strategically, it connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean region, while its geopolitical importance consists of its access to the Adriatic Sea (the Soviet Union once had an access to this arm of the Mediterranean Sea through a military port in Albania, but it was lost in the 1960s). It is also a meeting point between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Recently, the region has also been playing a role as the transit area of trade and energy flows, a characteristic which becomes more important 100
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than ever due to the increasing role of the Gulf states and the global project of China, called the Belt and Road initiative. For Moscow, the Balkans also have a cultural and ethnic role because of the historical ties between Russia and the region and also because of the large Slavic population living there and the influence the Orthodox Church has on most of their countries. The stakes are high for reasons of defence: in the last years, the expansion of the NATO has accelerated, and, now, there are only two countries left in the region which are not (yet) part of the military block: Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: Bosnia). In the meantime, Russia tries hard to prevent, or at least to slow down, the expansion of the block. The Balkans are also a problematic region: the issues of migration flows, drug trafficking, and organised crime cause headaches not only for Russia but even more for the European Union. Russia would probably be happy to have the area as a buffer zone, and, currently, it is de facto operating as such for the EU, as well. However, we can also conclude that Russia plays only a secondary role in Southern Europe, trying to keep (and, if possible, to improve) its positions on the energy market, and in some other sectors of the local economy, by building on the cultural and religious ties of the past and by slowing down the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Balkans. For Russia, the region is also secondary, coming after the post-Soviet countries. Its room for manoeuvre in Southern Europe is limited, and the region can mostly be considered as an arena of Russian power projection. THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IN SOUTHERN EUROPE In the Balkans, Serbia can be considered the main outpost of Russian positions, from where it embarks on expansion in the region. Belgrade
