Original title: PUTIN IS NOT GIVING UP ON MACEDONIA: He said that Russia is starting to implement the “B4” plan for the formation of a Balkan alliance!
On June 11, 2020, the portal Mkdpress.site published an article titled “PUTIN DOES NOT GIVE UP ON MACEDONIA: He said that Russia is starting to implement a plan “B4” for the formation of the Balkan Union!” The article states that the President of the Russian Federation allegedly advocated the formation of the so-called “Balkan Four”, i.e. an alliance of military-neutral states in the Balkans that would include Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia. The rest of the article focuses on Montenegro, especially on the division of the society in Montenegro in terms of NATO membership, Montenegro’s alleged pushing into NATO and NATO’s influence, with the United States playing a major role in the Balkan states.
The link to the original article can be found here.
First of all, it is “news” that is about 3 and a half years old, the original source of this news is Informer.rs and it was published on 28.12.2016 with the title “Putin ne da SRBIJU, BiH, CRNU GORU i MAKEDONIJU: Ovo su detalji ruskog B4 plana za Balkan” (Putin will not give up on SERBIA, B&H, MONTENEGRO and MACEDONIA: These are the details of Russia’s B4 plan for the Balkans). The words “PUTIN DOES NOT GIVE UP ON MACEDONIA” are taken from the Serbian portal Informer.rs, whose cover page also quotes Sergei Zeleznyak’s statement that reads: “Montenegro is being forcibly dragged into NATO, but this could cause conflict in the region”, which is also an old edition.
Namely, it is the same narrative that comes from official Moscow, and which is implemented in a period when both countries become members of NATO. In an interview with Greek ERT television on May 8, 2019, Russian Ambassador to Greece Andrei Maslov said that “the forced integration of North Macedonia into NATO will not contribute to security and stabilization of the situation in the Balkans.” The F2N2 team has already written on that topic.If the two articles are compared, it can be seen that the content of the article published on www.informer.rs is almost identical to that of the article published on https://mkdpress.site, with one difference: the content of the text published on the Macedonian portal MKD Press is shortened and modified in order to apply only for the Republic of North Macedonia. Thus, every part that speaks exclusively about the Republic of Serbia in the original Serbian version does not exist in the Macedonian version, i.e. it is intentionally deleted. In short: the author of the article in question is trying to use 3 and a half years old news and to re-actualize it as new.
Furthermore, the text states that “Putin is not giving up on North Macedonia/Serbia.” However, this statement was not made by Mr. Putin, but by Mr. Sergei Zeleznyak. However, it is Russian propaganda propagated by a person performing high public functions (a member of the Russian Duma and deputy secretary-general of the United Russia General Assembly) and a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Regarding the durability of the views expressed in the text of the article in question, it is necessary to analyze it from the current point of view. Today, Montenegro (2017) and the Republic of North Macedonia (2020) are already full members of the NATO Alliance. NATO membership has not resulted in any conflicts in either of these two countries, so Mr. Sergei Zheleznyak’s thesis is manipulative and untrue. On the contrary, the majority of citizens in the Republic of North Macedonia and in Montenegro are in favor of security and stability provided by NATO membership.On the other hand, Sergei Zheleznyak’s above-mentioned B4 initiative, which should be an alternative to the NATO alliance and the European Union membership, is without any practical application. Despite the fact that 16 declarations and memoranda dedicated to the B4 plan were signed in 2016 by 10 political parties in these 4 countries, no action has been taken regarding this initiative, nor has this idea ever been raised to the level of heads of state. On the other hand, the documents were signed at a time when neither Montenegro nor the Republic of North Macedonia were part of the NATO alliance. The situation today has changed dramatically, and this pro-Russian initiative is an impossible mission.
Today, we are already working on the creation of a Balkan economic zone, i.e. the establishment of a market on the territory of the Western Balkans, which is another proof of the dominance of progressive pro-Euro-Atlantic currents on the territory of the Balkans.
In fact, the very idea of an alliance of militarily neutral states is strange, especially since the proposer, the Russian Federation, has sold and donated a huge amount of weapons and equipment to the Republic of Serbia. On the other hand, it is astonishing that Serbia, as a military-neutral country, is rapidly arming itself from Russia by buying the Armor S1 artillery-missile defense system, helicopters, tanks, fighter jets, armored vehicles, etc.
Due to all this, it can be freely stated that the Macedonian version of the news in the subject tries to reactivate 3 and a half years old news is an attempt to manipulate the readers and spread Russian propaganda on the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia. What citizens need to know is that the B4 plan/initiative is just an old pointless initiative – an unfulfilled Russian dream.
