The Cold War, thoroughly thawed out over the last decade, seems to have been put back in the freezer this week as both Russia and the United States made it clear that they were picking sides. In the years following the Second World War the two super-powers had satellite states across the globe, but the situation now can be observed in just one state: Kosovo. The Americans stand by the Kosovars they helped to liberate, while the Russians are with the Serbs. The stance of the Russians really must be inspected carefully though since it is hard to tell whether they support the Serbs out of Slavonic brotherhood, because of fears of separatism in their own state or simply to aggravate the West.

With the American army announcing that it will be providing weapons for Kosovo’s military, the Russians announced that this move was ridiculous. Dmitrij Rogozin, Russia’s representative to NATO, described the decision to give weapons to what he deemed “former terrorists” in an attempt to deal with the War on Terrorism as “funny, if not something worse”. Clearly the language used by the Russians is provocative since it could be argued that the only reason the KLA were terrorists in the first place was because they had no other means of expression given the Serbian repression their cause suffered. The use of the word “terrorist” by the Russians is a cheap ploy to exploit the failings of the American, and increasingly global, psyche. Terrorism nowadays is synonymous with Muslim Terrorism and all of the accompanying adages that go with it such as Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and beheadings. To try and claim or imply that the KLA were ever part of a global Jihad is absolutely unfounded given the at times worryingly blind adoration that the average Kosovar feels for the United States.

The Russians have also declared that they will begin to send humanitarian aid to the Kosovo Serbs. Is North Mitrovica to become Russia’s West Berlin? This seems like a ludicrous provocation towards both the government of Kosovo and the forces of NATO. The fears of the Serbs of Mitrovica is understandable but the decision by the Russians comes so recently after the death of a Ukrainian NATO peacekeeper at the hands of orchestrated mob violence on the part of these very same Serbs. The destruction and chaos in North Mitrovica was all too apparent and one must surely wonder whether it is time that our sympathy for the Serbs started to run dry. Instead of partaking in the many humanitarian projects which are now available for improving their lives, a large group chose to set about ruining their own city, culminating in the murder of an outsider.

As Russia continues its mission to regain its former power, all lead by General Secretary Vladimir Putin, will North Mitrovica, and possibly Serbia as a whole, become one of Moscow’s satellite states. The similarities between this current situation and that which followed the Second World War are uncanny. This is not to suggest that a Soviet Empire akin to the Warsaw Pact will ever be resurrected, rather that the Serbian popularisation of everything Russian can be compared with the adulation that Russia received in countries like Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia immediately following the Second World War. In that instance people became disillusioned very quickly because Russia’s “humanitarian aid” lasted almost fifty years and came with many strings attached.

BBC Report on Putin’s stance
24 Sata on Russians anger at American military