Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani: Serbia is Russia's hand for destabilization in the Balkans

Russia will not stop with the war in Ukraine alone, the Western Balkans are highly threatened, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said at a diplomatic forum in Antalya, Turkey, adding that Serbia is Russia's "outstretched hand" to destabilize the region, Koha reported ".
Osmani called for a decision to end the war in Ukraine. According to her, if the conflict does not end peacefully, the consequences will spread to the Western Balkans.
"Russia sees the Balkans as a place where it wants to open a new front against the West. This was also confirmed by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. One of the greatest dangers of war is the spread or expansion of conflict. That is why we constantly say that what is happening in Ukraine is not happening only on the territory of a country, and that the outcome of this war will not be an outcome for Ukraine alone," she said.
"The way this war ends will set a precedent - if we don't talk about a just peace, it will be a terrible example not only for the Baltic states, Moldova and Georgia, but also for the Western Balkans. Russia says it very openly, I will not stop only on Ukraine. Russia is completely transparent about their goal, they want to expand the conflict," Osmani added.
Accusing Serbia of being the outstretched hand of Russia, Osmani described how Russia has historically tried to find ground to expand the war.
"Beyond the fact that we are neighbors with Serbia, which, unfortunately, not only recently, but for a long time, has become an outstretched hand of Russia in an attempt to destabilize the region. We cannot detect any Russian influence in Kosovo, and this has also helped us in our fight against Russian propaganda, which is huge in our region. They have always seen the Western Balkans as one of those fertile grounds for conflict. We had crisis after crisis in the region because the Russian interest was to return our region to the 1990s, when there were wars and conflicts," the president explained.
In the framework of the forum with the theme "Advancing Diplomacy in Times of Unrest", Osmani said that Kosovo has many open wounds from the war. /BGNES