СРБИЈА КАО „РУСКИ САВЕЗНИК”: ИЗГРАДЊА СТРАТЕШКОГ НАРАТИВА О СРБИЈИ У РЕГИОНУ НАКОН ПОЧЕТКА РАТА У УКРАЈИНИ
SERBIA AS A “RUSSIAN ALLY”: THE CONSTRUCTION OF STRATEGIC NARRATIVE ON SERBIA IN THE REGION AFTER THE START OF WAR IN UKRAINE

Author(s): Milan Igrutinović
Subject(s): Security and defense, Military policy, Geopolitics, Russian Aggression against Ukraine, Russian war against Ukraine
Published by: Institut za strategijska istraživanja
Keywords: Serbia; strategic narrative; Russia; Western Balkans; war in Ukraine
Summary/Abstract: The article examines strategic narratives about the Republic of Serbia as a “Russian ally” in public discourse in some neighbouring countries, with a temporal focus on the period from February 2022, since the beginning of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. In introduction the paper lays out the impact of ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine since February 2022 and the effect on the security landscape in Europe. It then zooms into the regional Balkan politics, on two commonly understood hotspots, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina and briefly sketches the Serbian relation to those hotspots. In the methodological chapter the author starts from the contemporary theoretical definition of strategic narratives as a means of communication by which political actors seek to determine the meaning of the past, present, and future in order to achieve political goals. The author lays out a strategic narrative typology, based on (Miskimmon, O’Loughlin & Roselle, 2013) and sets to query whether local/national strategic narratives in Kosovo and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo) form a narrative alliance (Homolar, Turner, 2023). Then, in two chapters the author cites and analyses numerous statements by public office holders Kosovo and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo) in which Serbia as a whole, or its individual foreign policy positions, are interpreted in terms of the special relationship between Serbia and Russia, while insisting on negative value determinants. The author then points out that this is a multifaceted construction of strategic narratives in which the Republic of Serbia is positioned as a “disruptive factor” in the region, behind which an international engagement to suppress such a factor is openly or covertly desired. The author determines that there are two separate and national strategic narratives, that are tailored towards international audience, that want to leverage their own interpretation of Serbia-Russian relationship. This is based on the connections between the local interests of these actors and the security challenges that arose after Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, as a dynamic that is being instrumentalized in regional security issues, in the manner described. The author rejects the hypotheses that there is one strategic narrative or narrative alliance in play, as local/national varieties are important and they address different kinds of practical political issues. Authors calls for further research into similar case studies and for more detailed and nuanced communicology research of regional strategic narratives.

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