Russia's contacts with Balkans political parties.
For Moscow, connections with Balkan parties are an instrument to exert influence in a region falling within the West's sphere. The declaration the ruling United Russia party signed with parties from Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina (BiH), Macedonia and Bulgaria on June 27 called for military neutrality in a Balkan zone of neutral sovereign states within a new pan-European continental security architecture that would exclude NATO membership and hark back to the Yugoslav policy of non-alignment.
Russia will balance NATO expansion into the Western Balkans with initiatives to increase its influence in the region's domestic politics.
Moscow will tacitly accept the Balkans' integration into the EU.
Russia will seek to diversify alliances, cooperating with both mainstream pragmatists and radicals calling for a turn away from the West.
