Kosovo, Not Serbia, Is Britain’s Front Line Against Moscow
Ukraine is Russia’s battlefield of conquest; Kosovo its laboratory of infiltration. Europe must stop indulging Belgrade’s double game before the Balkans becomes Moscow’s next Ukraine.
Two years on from the Banjska attack, the lesson for Europe is not simply about a firefight in a northern Kosovo village. It is about geography, choices, and clarity. Ukraine is the frontline of Russia’s brutal expansion eastward; Kosovo is the frontline of its infiltration westward. To ignore that is to repeat the blindness that allowed Crimea to be annexed in 2014 and to invite the same consequences in the Balkans tomorrow.
Serbia has made its choice. President Aleksandar Vucic presides over a government increasingly tied into Moscow’s energy arteries, Beijing’s defence supplies, and Kremlin-linked intelligence networks. Belgrade’s theatre of “balancing” between East and West is just that: theatre. The Rafale jets bought from France, or flirtations with EU membership, are bargaining chips to stall Western pressure while Serbia entrenches itself ever deeper in the Russian orbit. To call this “neutrality” is to indulge a lie.
By contrast, Kosovo stands alone in the Western Balkans as the only state fully aligned with the democratic world. It is not only defending its sovereignty against Belgrade-backed paramilitaries, but also pushing back against the psychological warfare, disinformation and Russian-style hybrid tactics funnelled through Serbian proxy media. That is not just a Balkan story, it is Europe’s story.
When Downing Street shut down Russia Today and Sputnik after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it understood that propaganda is not journalism but a weapon. The same principle must apply in Kosovo, where Serbian-controlled channels pump Kremlin narratives into its fragile democratic space. Britain should stand with Pristina’s government in cutting off these conduits of subversion.
On 22 October, London will host the Western Balkans Conference of the Berlin Process. For Britain, this is not a ceremonial gathering. It is an opportunity perhaps the last to end the indulgence of Belgrade’s double game. The message should be delivered plainly: Serbia is not a “bridge” between Moscow and Brussels, it is a pawn already moved to Moscow’s side of the board.
Kosovo is Britain’s natural ally. Twenty-five years ago, Tony Blair made the right call, mobilising Britain’s power to prevent genocide and stand with Kosovars. Today, Sir Keir Starmer faces a test of his own. The tools are different, diplomacy, sanctions, clear conditions on access to Western markets, but the stakes are no less grave. Serbia is probing, delaying, militarising, and waiting. To hesitate now is to risk watching the Balkans become a mirror of Ukraine, a war ignited by appeasement, fed by illusions of neutrality, and paid for in lives.
For Britain, this is not distant geopolitics. British troops are in KFOR, patrolling a line of tension that Belgrade stokes at Moscow’s behest. British markets are vulnerable to sanctions leakage that Serbia facilitates through Russian oil and gas channels. British politics is a target of the same disinformation techniques that Kosovo now faces.
London should remember: Moscow does not win by conquering alone; it wins by sowing doubt, delay, and division until the ground is ready. Kosovo has been holding that ground, almost entirely on its own, for two years. It is time Britain recognised the front line for what it is, not in Belgrade’s manoeuvres, but in Kosovo’s resistance.
Sir Keir has the chance, with pen and paper, to do what Britain once did with boots and resolve: to call things by their name, to draw a line, and to back its most trusted ally in the Balkans without hesitation. Because the Kremlin infection that Banjska revealed is not just Kosovo’s problem. It is Europe’s problem. And it is Britain’s problem at home.
