Recent coordinated revelations by British, Dutch and American intelligence agencies about the activities of Russian agents — conducting cyber attacks on countries, companies and international organisations — were a setback and an embarrassment for Moscow. The extent of such activities and the duplicity of the endless denials were illuminated. The eyes of other governments and the wider public will have been opened to what is really going on.
Yet, of equal, or even greater, concern is the nature and scale of Russia’s interventions in a growing number of southern and eastern European countries. While the West is distracted and divided, President Vladimir Putin is busily undermining its future stability in plain sight.
Events in Ukraine since 2014 remain the starkest example of this. Russia has annexed part of its territory — Crimea — and then pursued a long campaign of attrition and destabilisation to prevent Ukraine functioning as a normal country. Years of tragedy and death have ensued, including the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner, fiercely denied by Moscow but shown beyond doubt to have been caused by a Russian missile.
It is in smaller states, however, that the strategy has become utterly clear: To prevent countries from choosing of their own free will to become democratic nations within the western alliance. In 2016, an attempted coup in Montenegro — a last-ditch attempt to prevent this tiny country from joining Nato — was foiled, with Russian nationals among those indicted for the plot.
More recently and overtly, Russia has used its expertise in influencing electoral events abroad to depress the turnout of voters in the country still labouring with the official name of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Last week, a referendum on the new name of “Northern Macedonia”, agreed with Greece and opening the way to its application for membership of the European Union and Nato, failed to reach the required participation threshold. Reports abound of phoney social media accounts, cash payments to troublemakers and “fake news” to discourage voting and stir up tensions.
It is a fair assumption that similar techniques will have been used to influence two national elections in recent days. In Latvia, a pro-Russian party received sufficient votes in the general election to mean it may have to be included in the government, bringing its influence inside the West’s institutions. And in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the election of Moscow’s ally Milorad Dodik to the shared presidency will make it much harder for a country of enormous significance to peace in the Balkans to overcome its deep internal divisions or progress towards joining Nato. To join all these dots, we need to connect them to the talks between two other Balkan nations, Serbia and Kosovo, about the idea of “correcting” their border. While precise proposals are awaited, this would, in principle, involve moving some municipalities with mainly Serb populations into Serbia, and possibly some with Albanian majorities into Kosovo.
To many, such an issue must seem utterly obscure and unimportant. Many western governments are not interested. In Brussels and Washington, officials say they can agree to it provided it does not have implications elsewhere. But that is precisely the problem — it will have many such implications. Russia enthusiastically supports the border change. The United Kingdom is sceptical. Only Germany has so far been emphatically and publicly against it. As the German foreign minister has said, “It can tear open too many old wounds”.
Russia has no qualms about easing open this Pandora’s box, for the likely result is embittered relations between countries that may otherwise move on to a more stable and prosperous future within a broadly western framework. It matters enough in Moscow for resources and a coordinated strategy to be devoted to it.
There are three reasons why it matters. First, because if we are not firm about issues like this, we are saying to millions of people in fragile countries not far away that they are stuck permanently in a no-man’s land of political and economic stagnation, their leaders rewarded for fuelling ancient divisions rather than finding new grounds for working together.
Second, Russia’s systematic approach of weakening Europe with these policies — along with support for disruptive nationalist parties — is reaching into Nato itself, the bedrock of European security for nearly 70 years. Finally, weakness in the face of such activities will lead to a greater showdown in the future, on a border or in a country we cannot yet predict.
British agencies have led the way in exposing murderous and unacceptable actions. Britain has remained highly active in trying to promote the future stability of the Balkans and assuring the security of Europe’s Baltic allies. But now it is important to add to that a clear understanding of what is taking place, a united effort to deal with it, and a categorical insistence that the bloodstained map of eastern Europe is finished.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2018
William Hague was the British foreign secretary from 2010 to 2014.
