Will the UN stay in Kosovo after June?

(BRUSSELS2) Unmik will remain in Kosovo... At least that is the avowed objective of the Russians, if we are to believe Dimitri Rogozine, the Russian ambassador to NATO (whom I interviewed - interview published in Europolitics).

Ambassador but also politician and ardent nationalist, Rogozin (photo dating from 1985 © Rogozin) foresees that during the Russian presidency of the Security Council (rotating presidency, in March, it is the turn of the Russians) various initiatives will be taken to maintain the primordial role of the UN in the region. For him, he "There is only one leader in Kosovo, it is the Security Council, it's neither NATO nor the EU". In other words: the Eulex mission remains, if it wants, but so does Unmik. forces, to the same functions, under a double command.

A small coup de force by the Russians intended to show their muscles and affirm their presence in Eastern Europe which should last at least until the NATO summit (April in Bucharest). The Atlantic Organization must in fact decide on enlargement to very close countries, Ukraine and Georgia. What Russia is absolutely opposed to. There is a much more important strategic and tactical interest there for the former empire of the tsars than the presence of a few Serbs and monasteries in an arid province of the southern Balkan... Also the objective of the Russians: to have the independence of the autonomous republics recognized and self-proclaimed from South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgia, and settle the issue of Transnistria, a territory that separated from Moldova...

(NGV)