Serbia After Banjska: Guns, Gas, and Russian Leverage
Two years after Banjska, Serbia is more militarised, energy-bound to Russia, and reliant on Moscow’s security, while Western responses remain declaratory, fragmented, and strategically hesitant.
The year after “the year after”
Twelve months ago, I wrote1 that Banjska was not an aberration but a blueprint. Two years on from the 24 September 2023 attack, when a well-armed Serb paramilitary group killed Kosovo Police Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku and mounted a day-long firefight around the Banjska monastery, the blueprint has been iterated, refined, and normalised.
Since my first-anniversary piece, three tracks have defined “what happened after”:
Justice and accountability in Kosovo and the lack of it in Serbia.
Kosovo’s Special Prosecutor indicted 45 suspects in September 2024, including Milan Radoicic, the political fixer long tied to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), for organising the attack. Belgrade has still not extradited him.A regional security recalibration.
NATO kept KFOR reinforced after Banjska, repeatedly rotating additional units including British contingents through 2024–2025 to deter further incidents in the north. The UK publicly linked its October 2023 reinforcement to the Banjska violence, and British elements have continued to cycle through as part of NATO’s reserve posture.Accelerating Serbian militarisation East, West, and everywhere.
Belgrade consummated a long-trailed Rafale fighter purchase from France (12 aircraft), completed deployment of Chinese FK-3 (HQ-22 export) air-defence batteries, and folded Russian-origin Mi-35 gunships, bought second-hand from Cyprus into its inventory. The mix is eclectic, the message simple: more firepower, faster.
Have the EU, US or UK published a report on Banjska?
Short answer: no single, dedicated public investigative report by Brussels, Washington or London has been released to date. What we do have is a paper trail of official documents that reference Banjska, call for accountability, or urge action:
European Commission Kosovo Report 2024: The Commission labels Banjska “the gravest escalation in recent years,” praises the Kosovo Police response, and explicitly ties accountability to EU-facilitated dialogue progress. It’s authoritative, but not a standalone Banjska forensic report.
European Parliament 2023 resolution & 2025 enlargement texts: MEPs condemned the attack, pressed the Council for targeted restrictive measures against destabilisers, and crucially urged publication of findings from the attack investigation. Again: strong political guidance, not a published EU investigation.
U.S. State Department reporting: Banjska appears in State’s annual country reporting (e.g., Country Reports on Terrorism and other series) as a benchmark incident in 2023, a formal acknowledgement, not a dedicated U.S. investigative dossier.
UK Government statements. The UK has used multilateral fora to demand accountability, London’s October 2024 OSCE statement explicitly calls on Serbia to cooperate in bringing Banjska perpetrators to justice, but has published no bespoke British “Banjska report.”
Bottom line: no EU/US/UK standalone public report; instead, Banjska is woven into annual reports, parliamentary resolutions and diplomatic statements that repeatedly stress often in vain the need for Serbia to prosecute and extradite.
After Banjska: how Vucic doubled down on Moscow and shopped for more weapons
If you want to know where Belgrade leans, follow the gas. Serbia is lining up a new three-year gas import deal with Gazprom (2.5 bcm/year), extending a dependency locked in by the 2022 Vucic–Putin contract. Serbia also had to navigate repeated U.S. sanctions waivers for NIS, the oil company majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft/Gazprom, another structural tie.
Diplomatically, Vucic managed the optics with a now-infamous United Nations episode (February 2025), when Serbia voted for a Ukraine resolution and the President publicly called it a “mistake,” apologising and signalling where sympathies lie.
Defence procurement: what, from whom, and why it matters?
12 Dassault Rafale multirole fighters (France): Deal finalised 29 Aug 2024; estimated value ~ €3bn according to earlier briefings. Operational impact: a generational leap over Serbia’s ageing MiG-29 fleet, expanding strike reach deep over the Balkans.
FK-3 (HQ-22 export) surface-to-air missiles (China). System fielding confirmed Jan 2025; gives Serbia a modern medium-range SAM with area-denial implications over northern Kosovo and central Serbia.
Pantsir-S1/S1M short-range air defence (Russia). Delivered in tranches since 2020; Vucic long touted upgrades. Pantsir provides point defence for key sites and can complicate KFOR air ops in a contingency.
Mi-35 attack helicopters (ex-Cyprus, Russian-origin). 11 airframes announced Nov 2023; integration continued through 2024–2025, adding CAS and anti-armour punch.
Loitering munitions (“kamikaze drones”) (UAE). Announced Feb 2023; follow-on activity in 2025 suggests the class is being showcased and integrated into doctrine. Capability: standoff precision at low cost, ideal for deniable harassment in a gray-zone fight.
This shopping list does two things at once. It keeps faith with Moscow and Beijing (air defences, legacy platforms) while courting Western kit (Rafale) to hedge sanctions risk and cultivate leverage in Paris and Brussels. It’s not “pivoting West”; it’s arming everywhere.
Security & intelligence alignment
Belgrade’s Russian vector is not just hardware. In March 2025, Serbia’s deputy prime minister publicly thanked Russian spy services for assistance in managing anti-government protests, an extraordinary admission that underlined how Serbian internal security now intersects with Moscow’s services. Meanwhile, the Russia-Serbia “Humanitarian Center” in Nis continues to draw EU scrutiny, with Parliament urging transparency and a halt to military cooperation with Russia.
Did Western pressure bite? Sanctions, indictments, and what stuck
Kosovo’s casework moved; Serbia’s didn’t. Pristina’s 45-person indictment and Interpol notices stand. In the EU system, Banjska features in country reports and resolutions, yet no Council-level listings tied specifically to Banjska have been published publicly.
UK and US designations kept the heat on known networks. London’s regime lists Milan Radoicic under Global Anti-Corruption sanctions, and the U.S. keeps him on the SDN List (GLOMAG). But the core ask extradition and prosecution in Serbia, remains unmet.
EU’s political message hardened in 2025. Parliament called out Serbia’s declining CFSP alignment and Russia-/China-driven disinformation at home, linking rule-of-law backsliding and foreign-policy ambiguity to enlargement risks.
Why Serbia’s Moscow line is a British national-security problem
Troops in harm’s way: The UK has repeatedly reinforced KFOR since Banjska; any Serbian-enabled flare-up risks direct confrontation with British soldiers deployed under a NATO flag. That risk is not hypothetical; it is the literal reason London surged forces in October 2023.
Hybrid threat surface: The UK’s Integrated Review Refresh (2023) names Russia as the “most acute threat”. A Serbia that hosts Russian influence nodes (media, security, intelligence, energy) is a forward operating environment for Kremlin disinformation, espionage and sanctions evasion on the EU/NATO periphery. That assessment is echoed in Parliament’s own analysis.
Energy + sanctions leakage: Continued Gazprom gas deals and NIS ownership entanglements complicate EU-UK sanctions policy coherence. Loopholes exploited via Belgrade ripple into UK markets and partners something Whitehall has quietly tried to manage with waivers, work-arounds and pressure.
Operational security and “hubs”: British media reporting in 2025 captured MI6 concerns about siting UK “return hubs” in Western Balkans jurisdictions precisely because of Russian infiltration risk. Even where policy avoids Serbia, the appraisal speaks to the region’s counter-intelligence fragility with Belgrade chief among the worries.
Net assessment: Serbia’s deliberate equivocation EU candidate rhetoric, Russian energy, Chinese air defences, Western fighters creates a permissive space for Kremlin influence at the edge of NATO. For London, that translates into heightened risk to deployed forces, degraded sanctions effectiveness, wider European instability costs, and a more complex counter-intelligence environment.
What to watch after this second anniversary
Extraditions & trials: Does Belgrade finally cooperate on Radoicic and co., or does the impunity gap persist into 2026?
Rafale timelines vs. Russian gas timelines: The faster the French jets arrive, the clearer Paris’ leverage. But Gazprom’s new three-year gas deal would outlast the first Rafale, IOC energy dependency is stickier than airpower prestige.
Serbia’s conscription debate and parade politics: Authorities moved to reintroduce compulsory service in 2024; in 2025, a grand parade showcased the mixed arsenal as domestic protests simmered. Watch whether militarised spectacle masks democratic contraction.
EU conditionality with teeth: The Parliament’s 2025 language is sharper. Will the Council and Commission finally test conditionality if accountability stalls?2
Banjska was the loud part. What followed was quieter but more consequential: a Serbia more militarised, more energy-bound to Russia, and more comfortable with Russian security assistance, while buying just enough Western kit to keep doors open in Paris and Brussels. The West’s line, meanwhile, stayed largely declaratory. Two years on, the facts on the ground have hardened and with British soldiers still on that ground, the UK has more than a spectator’s stake in what comes next.
Kosovo, Not Serbia, Is Britain’s Front Line Against Moscow
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.
One Year After Banjska: The West’s Role in Serbia’s Balkan Escalation
One year after Serbia’s brazen attempt to annex northern Kosovo in a Kremlin-inspired operation, the situation in the Western Balkans has deteriorated further. The Serbian state, emboldened by Western appeasement and free from accountability, has openly embraced the toxic influence of Russia, China, and Iran, dragging the region deeper into instability. As of September 24, 2024, Serbia now
One Year After Banjska: The West’s Role in Serbia’s Balkan Escalation
One year after the Banjska attacks, Serbia’s aggression and Western appeasement continue to destabilise Kosovo, raising questions about regional security and international accountability. — The GPC Balkan Watch.
Sources that matter:
EU Commission, Kosovo Report 2024—Banjska as “gravest escalation”; policing and justice context.
EP resolutions (2023–2025)—Sanctions calls, CFSP alignment, Russia/China influence.
UK OSCE statement (Oct 2024)—Direct call for Serbia to cooperate on Banjska accountability.
Reuters & Defence News procurement/energy reporting—Rafale deal; FK-3 deployment; Mi-35s; gas contracts; NIS waivers.
Reuters (Mar 2025)—Serbian deputy PM crediting Russian intelligence support against protests.