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”:

1. 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.

2. 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 reinforcem…