3 March 2021
Journalist: Let us get some more reaction from another country in Eastern Europe, let us talk to the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti. Really good to talk to you today and thanks a lot for joining us.
How concerned are you that the events that the events that are happening in Ukraine could spill over into the Balkans, possibly into your country?
Prime Minister Kurti: Good Morning. Well, I think that we have already seen in the Balkans in Kosovo in spring 1999 when 860.000 Albanians of Kosovo were departed to Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia. Hundreds of massacres took place, 12.000 unarmed civilians were killed and 20.000 women were raped.
We see now this Russian invasion, military aggression that every institutional leader, every European and world politician should condemn fiercely, clearly, and in this way, we should all show solidarity and admiration with the courage and liberation struggle with Ukrainian people.
Balkans is not immune from the effects of the situation in Ukraine because in the Balkans we have a country which did not impose sanctions on Russian Federation, which did not join EU in condemning Russian invasion, and that is Serbia, our first neighbor. We have a very long border with Serbia.
Serbia is our northern neighbor who does not recognize the Republic of Kosovo in contrast to Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia.
Serbia has strong ties with [Russia], and these ties are both cultural and historical in one hand, but also military and economic ones. For example, Serbia has fourteen MIG-29 fighter jets and they have got eight of them donations from Belarus and six from Russian Federation.
In Serbian parliament, out of 250 MPs, 151 of them are members of the Russian-Serbian friendship group – it is the largest friendship group.
At the same time, Russian Gazprom owns 56% of oil industry in Serbia and 51% of gas storage in Banatski Dvor in Vojvodina, which is the biggest one in South and East Europe.
Lukoil, Sberbank, all Russian companies have their branches in Serbia and that is why people of Kosovo are worried that despotic president of Russian federation, Vladimir Putin, would try to outsource war also in the Western Balkans by turning it into his battleground with western democracies.
But we stand firm and vigilant and we are not afraid. We want to join EU and NATO.
Currently, we have NATO in Kosovo, but sooner we get NATO membership, it will be better for people of Kosovo, for the Republic of Kosovo, but for the entire region and European continent in general.
Journalist: Kosovo has already been mentioned by the Russian foreign minister Lavrov for several times. He said that people of Kosovo have gone to fight at Donbas. What do you make of that?
Prime Minister Kurti: That shows his intention. He wants to destabilize the Balkans, that is why he is saying these false things.
There are no Kosovo citizens who went to fight in Donbas.
It is Russia who annexed Donbas and Crimea.
Let us not forget that President Putin came to power as Prime Minister of the Russian Federation only 2 months after the liberation of Kosovo in 1999, and then he annexed South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia in the same year, a few months after we declared our independence on the 17 February 2008.
President Putin was mentioning Kosovo at least once a month, and now he is doing it every week, because he simply hates NATO, he hates the West.
He is a despotic leader, who is both bitter and nostalgic, and he would like to turn hybrid war into war. Now we have seen that hybrid war was never a substitution for war, it was just its preparatory phase.
And there is a hybrid war also in the Western Balkans and the Sputnik center is in Belgrade for the entire region of the Western Balkans.
Therefore, the EU and NATO should engage more with the Western Balkans.
I urge five non-recognizers within EU to recognize the Republic of Kosovo.
Spain, Slovakia, Romania, Greece and Cyprus should recognize the independence of Kosovo and in this way contribute a great deal to peace, stability and security.
On the other hand, President Putin was receiving, was hosting at Sochi last November the President of Serbia, Vucic, who during the meeting showed the map of Kosovo with the northern part in particular, because some of its illegal structures there are still very active and functioning there. Basically, they are in close coordination.
That is why, EU capitals should be very firm in asking Serbia to condemn the Russian invasion, because Ukraine has not been overrun by earthquakes or floods, it was not a natural disaster, but it was war machinery led by a despotic president with genocidal intent which is causing the mass expulsion of Ukrainians from Ukraine.
Apparently, the Russian Blitzkrieg has failed, but it is obvious for me that they will go now after partition, after dividing of Ukraine into eastern and western part, where the western part they would try to be landlocked and as small territorially as possible.
That is why I support people of Ukraine. We have imposed sanctions on Russian Federation just like the Council of EU decided and at the same time we are going to host 20 journalists from Ukraine who had to flee their country.
Last Sunday, the decision of Bundestag was historic and that was of a great help for the EU and the region.
Journalist: Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, I’m really good to talk to you today. Thank you so much for joining us.
Prime Minister Kurti: Thank you.
Last modified: August 11, 2022