In the ill-lit back room of an Orthodox church richly decorated with bone-white marble, a burly priest poured another shot of homemade brandy as he railed against attempts by the Montenegrin government to throw in its lot with the West.
“NATO is nothing but an occupying force,” said Momcilo Krivokapic, 71, dressed in black robes and with a large silver crucifix dangling at his chest.
Krivokapic, a senior cleric, is one of a colourful cast of characters who have turned his Mediterranean homeland into the flashpoint of a dangerous new Cold War that pits a resurgent Kremlin against a weakening West.
It has emerged that the multiple tentacles of Russian interference, which also includes a plot to overthrow the Montenegrin government — and to prevent the country’s planned accession to NATO next year — extended into Krivokapic’s church of St Nicholas in the port city of Kotor.
In a curious ceremony the priest, who sports a long white beard, gave his blessing to a shadowy Russian-backed paramilitary organisation, the Balkan Cossack Army, as members of President Vladimir Putin’s favourite motorcycle gang and a self-styled Russian “general” looked on.
Kotor’s deepwater port, which was built for large battleships and is coveted by the Kremlin and NATO, is one of the reasons this picturesque Mediterranean nation of just 620,000 people is at the centre of a tug of war between Russia and the West.
The Kremlin’s interest in the country is part of wider Russian muscle-flexing across southeastern Europe where it is sponsoring political parties, staging military manoeuvres and developing a mysterious “humanitarian” centre in Serbia that NATO suspects is a cover for espionage. In a further boost for the Kremlin, pro-Russian candidates won presi#dential elections last month in Moldova and Bulgaria.
Western concerns at the Kremlin’s activities in the Balkans, long seen as Europe’s weak underbelly, have been highlighted by a confidential report adopted by NATO last week that sounded the alarm about Russia’s “destabilising” activities in the region.
The report accuses Russia of forging ties with elites in targeted countries, supporting anti-Western groups and buying its way into the energy and media sectors. “As part of Russia’s effort to reassert itself on the world stage, there’s been an increase in activities in the western Balkans, including destabilising behaviour,” the report states.
NATO, it argues, should work with the EU to counter “Russian disinformation” and help Balkan nations increase their “resilience” to the Kremlin’s malign influence.
With just 2000 men under arms, Montenegro — the smallest of the six republics that once made up the socialist former Yugoslavia — will contribute little to NATO, many of whose members are under pressure from US president-elect Donald Trump to increase military spending to 2 per cent of their gross domestic product.
But the political and strategic significance of its accession — coupled with a parallel attempt to join the EU — is huge.
Montenegro is the only country on Europe’s Mediterranean coast outside NATO; a government source called it the “last piece” of “unclaimed real estate” left from Lisbon to the Syrian port of Latakia.
“The western Balkans could be Europe’s next conflict,” said Adam Thomson, until last month Britain’s ambassador to NATO and now director of the European Leadership Network, a think tank.
The importance to Russia of a friendly Mediterranean port became clear in October as its aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov struggled to find a berth to refuel en route from Russia to Syria.
It was against this background that the Balkan Cossack Army, made up of Russian paramilitaries and locals who fought in the Balkan civil wars of the 1990s and the present conflict in Ukraine, came to Krivokapic for a blessing.
The Night Wolves, a Russian motorcycle gang beloved of Putin, travelled almost 3000km from Moscow to attend the event, presided over by Viktor Zaplatin, a self-styled Russian general who fought in several murky conflicts instigated by the Kremlin.
He addressed the crowd in the name of Alexander Borodai, a suspected Russian war criminal targeted by international sanctions for his involvement in Ukraine.
Soon after the creation of the paramilitary outfit, which is now under investigation by authorities, Montenegro was shaken by claims of a Russian-backed plot to seize government institutions after parliamentary elections on October 16.
Two Russians, Eduard Shirokov and Vladimir Popov, who allegedly worked for GRU, Russia’s military intelligence, have been charged with plotting a coup.
Investigators claim the pair operated from Belgrade, capital of neighbouring Serbia, from where they are accused of masterminding a conspiracy to infiltrate fighters among Montenegrin police and security personnel on election night and cause bloodshed that would lead to a takeover by the pro-Russian opposition.
Their aim, it was alleged, was to capture or kill the then prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, who is credited with orchestrating Montenegro’s NATO application, and replace him with a Russian crony.
“We face an aggressive power which initiated this (plot) to stop the expansion of NATO,” thundered Djukanovic, who has since stepped down in favour of a close confidant, amid speculation he is contemplating a run for the presidency.
The Kremlin has warned Montenegro against joining the alliance but denies any involvement in the plot, which has led to the arrest of 20 people there and in Serbia.
Western officials, however, see the episode as a further sign of Putin’s determination to use a mixture of soft and hard power in Europe to weaken democratic governments and test Western resolve by expanding Moscow’s zone of influence.
A source in the Montenegrin cabinet claims the paramilitary groups and the attempted coup are part of an “unequivocal message” from the Kremlin that amounts to: “We are back and you belong to us.” The EU, he claims, has given up on integrating the Balkans because of concerns about migration, leaving a vacuum that Putin sees as an “open invitation”.
Montenegro’s prosecutors initially charged Aleksandar Sindjelic, a convicted criminal from Serbia who fought with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, with leading the coup. He has since been declared a “protected witness” so he can testify against the Russians.
Sindjelic, who was deported from Serbia to Montenegro in dubious legal circumstances, told prosecutors of his links to the Russian defence ministry; he also recalled how the two Russian agents had hosted him in a luxury apartment in central Moscow and gave him €200,000 ($283,000) in cash to prepare logistics.
A cache of weapons was found in Serbia, from where the Russians operated, but Montenegro’s authorities failed to link it to the alleged coup. With no weapons yet found in Montenegro, prosecutors are being ridiculed by opposition and critics in the media who claim the plot was invented by Djukanovic.
The revelations have embarrassed Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s pro-Western Prime Minister, who is said to have known nothing about the plot, even though his secret service reportedly was aware of it.
Serbia, which maintains military neutrality but aspires to join the EU, has steered a pro-Western course since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, its former leader and a staunch Moscow ally who died while on trial for war crimes in the conflicts that raged through the region in the 90s.
“The secret service monitored the Russians throughout their operation but Vucic was never told,” said a top Montenegrin government source who has been working with Serbian authorities. “When he found out he was furious … Serbia’s Prime Minister does not have his secret services under control.”
Asked about the plot during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels late last month, Vucic appeared to want to send a message to Russia. “Serbia will never be a stage for preparing criminal acts against other countries,” he said. During the visit Vucic sought help to combat the Kremlin’s “enormous pressure”, diplomats say.
Days after the story of the alleged coup attempt emerged, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s security council and a close aide of Putin, arrived on a sudden visit to Belgrade, offering an informal deal on security co-operation. Diplomats and local officials described the visit as “crisis management”.
NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has pledged not to accept “any interference” in Montenegro’s accession to NATO, which needs the ratification of all 28 member states.
“I welcome the open investigation both in Montenegro and Serbia related to the attempted … coup,” he said during Vucic’s visit last month, urging alliance members to speed up the ratification process.
NATO officials had hoped the process could be completed before Trump took office next month, but the US Senate failed to ratify it before its legislative session ended last week. Trump’s admiration for Putin has alarmed Western #officials but delighted pro-Russian activists in the Balkans.
“The election of Donald Trump was a blessing — as if God extended his hand over us,” said Krivokapic, voicing hopes the new president will strike a deal with Putin and abandon the Balkans to Russia.
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