[Yugoslavia Memory of a disaster] 1993. The outbidding of Russian volunteers in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(ARTICLE published in 1993) The latest arrivals are 18 new volunteers from the “Russian National Legion” sent these days to join the Serbian front lines in Bosnia. According to some estimates, Russian volunteers are already between 500 and 800 in Bosnia. Moreover, group initiatives are multiplying in Russia to send volunteers to the Yugoslav front. Each with different ulterior motives but in common the firm intention of making a place for themselves in the sun and a clearly more or less clearly avowed objective of forming trained troops in this way, under the pretext of defending the “Serb Orthodox brothers” against the influences hegemonic in their eyes in Europe of Muslim and Catholic forces.
Legion leader Nikolai Lysenko recently revealed “that he had established direct discussions with the Serbian government to allow volunteers to return to the country without a tourist visa… as is currently the case”. General Nikolai Filatov, another Russian nationalist who went to Belgrade at the end of December, willingly provocative and going to war, promised meanwhile “toflood Serbia with stockpiles of weapons and send volunteers”.
Fin décembre c’était le PSP, Parti social populaire, qui avait envoyé via la Bulgarie des volontaires. Mais son dirigeant Yuri Belyaev, compte dorénavant les “envoyer directement en Serbie, avant que ses frontières soient totalement fermées sous la pression des Nations unies ou d’autres organisations internationales. Ce parti de tendance “socialiste nationale” ne compte que plusieurs dizaines de membres mais gère un centre de recrutement à Saint Petersbourg. Car pour son dirigeant “we will also have to go to war in Russia soon. Our party needs officers trained and experienced in warfare. Yugoslavia is a good ground”. And to denounce: “a deliberate policy (aimed at) suppressing the European Slavic peoples including the Russians, the Serbs, the Poles is in progress. According to the Austrian press agency CINA, such centers also exist in Moscow and Rostow on the Don (Southern Russia).
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
