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Recent weeks have shown how quickly situations can change under US President Donald Trump.
What could this mean for the Western Balkans?
Yugoslavia's three wars of the 1990s – in Croatia (1991-95), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-95) and Kosovo (1999) – finally ended under US leadership. Since then, two military missions led by the EU and NATO have been ensuring peace in these former war zones. But for more than two years, the situation in the Western Balkans has been steadily deteriorating.
The spiral of violence began in December 2022. After representatives of the Serbian minority in the Republic of Kosovo under the guidance of Serbia's capital, Belgrade, left the institutions of the Kosovo state – the judiciary, police and administration – Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić began a buildup of troops on the northern border of the neighboring country.
Former German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger accused Vučić of wanting to “play the role of a little Putin.” “I find it unimaginable how Vučić and the Serbian leadership are stirring up trouble here. I place the blame for this escalation exclusively on Belgrade.”
Vučić, on the other hand, stressed that Serbia's army would protect the Serbian minority in Serbia's "southern province" - as the leadership in Belgrade still calls Kosovo, which has not been under Serbian control since 1999. During 2023, the situation escalated: In the riots in May, violent Serbs beat and injured 90 NATO soldiers from the peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR.
The situation in Kosovo almost escalated
In September 2023, near the Serbian Orthodox monastery of Banjska in northern Kosovo, there was fighting between Serbian paramilitaries and Kosovo police. Four people were killed and dozens of Serbian paramilitaries led by a Vučić confidant managed to escape to Serbia. They left behind a modern military arsenal worth millions from the Serbian army's reserves, which could have equipped more than 100 fighters.
A larger military operation was apparently planned here – perhaps with the aim of occupying the four northern municipalities of Kosovo, where the Serb minority makes up the majority of the population in the predominantly Albanian country. In October 2023, Vučić then ordered tanks to head towards Kosovo, which were only stopped by diplomatic interventions from Washington and NATO.
In April 2024, US General Christopher Cavoli, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, warned the US Congress about Belgrade's intentions, saying that the surge of Serbian troops after the attack in Banjska was the "greatest threat of interstate violence" in 25 years.
Threats against Bosnia
Meanwhile, Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin threatened another neighboring country during a visit to the Russian capital Moscow: “Bosnia has never been so close to its end.” Shortly before, Milorad Dodik, the separatist president of the Serb-dominated “entity” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska (RS), was sentenced by the Bosnian Supreme Court to one year in prison and a six-year ban on holding office.
Just days earlier, Dodik had threatened that an indictment against him could deal a “fatal blow” to Bosnia. The RS president was accused of ignoring the decisions of the High Representative, Christian Schmidt. The High Representative is the highest institution of the international community in Bosnia, which has been ensuring peace in the country since the end of the 1992-95 war. After his conviction, Dodik went further and initiated the adoption of laws in the RS Parliament, which are in force in the official gazette of state security.
"Traitorous Serbs"
Following his conviction, Dodik initiated a series of laws in the Republika Srpska (RS) parliament that would ban Bosnian security and justice agencies from operating in RS. The laws came into force on Friday (06.03.2025) – but have not been implemented by all authorities. Employees at the Bosnian headquarters of the Bosnian state police authority, the State Investigation and Security Agency (SIPA), continue to work, while their colleagues at the regional office in the RS capital, Banja Luka, have been dismissed.
RS President Dodik had warned: All those who remain in Bosnian state institutions will be treated as “Serb traitors.” During a meeting with Serbian President Vučić in Belgrade on March 6, Dodik even claimed, “that Bosniaks from Sarajevo want an armed conflict in Bosnia,” to “take revenge on Serbs.”
Schmidt: " The red line has been crossed"
High Representative Schmidt reacted on March 8. On German national radio Deutschlandfunk, he said that with “Dodik's attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” a “red line has been crossed.” Schmidt called on the international community to commit itself more strongly to the crisis in Bosnia.
For the first time, the High Representative explicitly criticized, in addition to Dodik, the Serbian government, which "must be clearly shown its limits." / DW
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