The Croatian parliament has approved an increase in Croatia's military contingent in KFOR, NATO's peacekeeping force in Kosovo, from 152 to 200 soldiers in 2026. The move comes after the US announced it would partly withdraw from Europe and reduce its presence in the Kosovo force.

On paper, it's a modest increase - forty-eight more soldiers in one international mission. But in the Serbian media, the figure was instantly given a dramatic frame. Military analyst Andrej Mlakar from RT Balkan claims it is the "realisation of the idea of a triple alliance to make Kosovo a centre of pressure on Serbia" and that an "offensive army by NATO standards" is being built.

Here it's worth pausing. One thing is a verifiable fact - Croatia is replacing the soldiers the US is pulling out. Another is the interpretation about a "hellish plan," claims of a thousand kamikaze drones and heavy offensive weaponry, coming from an analyst on a media outlet with a clear geopolitical orientation. Metla doesn't relay those claims as truth - it relays them as what they are: part of the information war that has been waged for decades around Kosovo, in which every side has its own "experts" with conclusions written in advance.

The reality is more prosaic and more dangerous than all the theories. When one great power withdraws, regional players fill the void, and the Balkans always pay when the powerful redistribute forces over their heads. We don't need a triple conspiracy for it to be unsettling that the region's security still depends on others' decisions taken far from here. The question isn't whose "hellish plan" it is - but why, twenty-six years on, Kosovo is still a place where everyone flexes their muscles and no one brings peace.