Report: Russia now stoking Bosnian Serb separatism

[Cali_Democrat]

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - British politician and former Bosnia peace overseer Paddy Ashdown accused Russia on Tuesday of encouraging Serb separatist sentiment in the Western-backed Balkan country in the style of Ukraine's Crimea.

Ethnic Serb leaders in Bosnia, who look to wartime backer Serbia and fellow Orthodox Christian ally Russia for support, have frequently threatened secession since the end of a 1992-95 war in which some 100,000 people were killed.

Ashdown, who served as international peace envoy to Bosnia from 2002 to 2006, urged Europe and the United States to quench separatist tendencies in the country of 3.8 million people, which is still deeply split along ethnic lines.

Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, which is majority ethnic Russian, has again stirred dispute over the principle of sovereignty, last tested when the West supported Kosovo's secession from Bosnia neighbor Serbia in 2008 over Russian objections.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/140318/russia-stoking-bosnian-serb-separatism-echo-crimea-ashdown

[geek tragedy]

1. Moscow was the biggest supporter of Slobo, Mladic, and Karadzic. nt

[Cali_Democrat]

3. I read a translation of Putin's speech on Crimea yesterday

What struck me was his absolute anger about Kosovo and US/NATO policies in that part of the world throughout the 1990's

I don't think he gives a damn about Iraq, but his anger about Kosovo was telling.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Russia is trying to get it's USSR back

I think it may be a little tricky for them

[Junkdrawer]

4. Destabilizing Bosnia/Serbia for political purposes?

[Benton D Struckcheon]

5. Kosovo independence was a huge success.

Getting that agreed to finally ended the endless wars in the Balkans after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.
For reasons that can only be explained by ethnic chauvinism, this galls Putin no end. That speech was a truly pathetic thing, a baring of the soul of a self-pitying loser. It finally explained why he's taken Russia down the dead end he has it hurtling towards at top speed.
You can either pick at old grievances forever and let vengeance over them destroy your future, or you can embrace progress and let it go. He chose the former.
He couldn't get a single former Soviet state to support his move in Crimea. They all basically looked at him and shook their heads. It would be sad to see this with anyone else. With Putin, you just have to laugh. He's an outcast that everyone is afraid of, but no one will miss when he's gone.
Russia is no longer owed any deference or respect internationally. It has no allies, anywhere. All it has are countries too afraid to say it's wrong.