Moscow has spoken about the Balkans, and it did not do so in diplomatic language. Yuri Pilipson, director of the Second European Department of the Russian foreign ministry, said that any pulling of Kosovo towards Euro-Atlantic structures is a „dangerous fantasy” and a threat to regional security.

The trigger for the reaction is the trilateral memorandum on military cooperation between Albania, Croatia and Kosovo, signed in March last year. What is technical cooperation for Tirana, Zagreb and Pristina is something else entirely for Moscow - the construction of a „military quasi-bloc”.

„It is dangerous to fantasise about pulling this traditionally Serbian region into Euro-Atlantic structures. We share the concerns of our partners in Belgrade, who rightly see pronounced anti-Serbian sentiment and potential security threats to their country in the military cooperation between Zagreb, Tirana and Pristina”, Pilipson said.

In his view, creating a closed Zagreb - Tirana - Pristina axis, at a time when the new „allies” barely get along with their own neighbours, is a destabilising factor and an „irritant”. The wording is Russian, but the remark about neighbourly relations was not invented from nothing - anyone who follows regional politics knows how easily a fuse is lit here.

Pilipson also listed the alliance's stated goals: development of a defence industry, joint procurement of military equipment, improved interoperability of armed forces and integration of data processing and transmission systems. That is not rhetoric, that is a list that looks like something far more concrete than a memorandum.

Where is Macedonia in this calculation?

Nowhere in the statement - and that is the detail that says the most. The axis Moscow describes runs to the north and to the south of us, and Macedonia has been a NATO member since 2020, which means it is part of the same military system without being part of this particular agreement. When big players draw lines on the Balkan map, small states usually find out where they ended up after the line has been drawn.

What remains is the question nobody asks out loud: how much of this Russian concern is a sincere analysis of security risk, and how much is an attempt to put the Balkans back on the list of open fronts while Moscow has more pressing problems? The answer, as usual, we will see later - and most likely will not like.