In the heart of a war in Europe, a vote took place last Sunday in two countries just a few miles from the war front.
In both Hungary and Serbia, two populist leaders, the only Putinists, have been widely confirmed by voters.
In a climate of a general political isolation in which the Russian Federation has found itself since the day of the invasion of Ukraine, these results would at first glance seem like a victory for Vladimir Putin, a victory for him on the opponent’s front.
But let’s say that, despite the look, it is not.
Newly re-elected, Viktor Orban said he had never had so many enemies as now and listed “Brussels bureaucrats”, the inevitable Soros empire, the international media and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Hungarian government, in fact, is the only one in the entire European Union that has refused to be part of the sanctions against Russia and has opposed sending weapons to the Ukrainian resistance.
But, as just said, he is the only one! Orban, like Putin, he is now in a situation of political isolation.
He also broke the alliance with the allies of the Visegrad Group, a coalition of states united by populism, euroscepticism and the theory of “illiberal democracy”, as opposed to Western liberalism, also theorized by Vladimir Putin.
The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are not only at the forefront of the Ukrainian refugee reception front, but are also among the most staunch supporters of NATO and the most staunch supporters of the Zelensky-led resistance.
Just to remind they were the only European leaders who challenged Russian bombs to show their solidarity with the Ukrainian president by going to meet him in Kiev.
Therefore, if Orban now is like an infiltrator in the European Union and is not sure if he will again be able to take a last-minute step back to avoid exclusion, the real loser of this political turn is Vladimir Putin.
In fact, the Russian leader had found in the Visegrad group the most compact nucleus of the “illiberal Internationale”, which he himself was creating by financing populist movements and far-right parties from Le Pen in France, to the “Afd” in Germany, to “Lega”, “Fratelli d’Italia” and “5 Star Movement” in Italy.
An attack on the heart of European democracy, brought in by Western countries and until recently supported by US President Donald Trump through his ideologue Steve Bannon, who, before being investigated in the United States, was ready to move to Europe, precisely for the expansion of this “Internationale”.
And now Orban is isolated in a Europe compact with NATO and the US and in strong and decisive support for Ukraine, against the occupation of the Russian Federation.
What path will Hungary take, a country with a weak economy that basically lives on funds coming from the hated Brussels? Will it choose to return to the Soviet past? And, in that case, will the Hungarians really be ready to follow that path?
Putin, meanwhile, is seeing his populist strategy fade, which was supposed to lead to the disintegration of the West for lack of allies and solidarity within itself.
The situation regarding the elections in Serbia is different.
President Aleksandar Vuçiç, after winning the presidential and administrative elections, confirmed the usual policy of ambiguity, which he is used to follow on the international stage: “I believe that we will have to face many challenges, but the most important thing for Serbia is to have good relations in the region and to continue its European path. Without breaking ties with her traditional friends at the same time. We will continue with military neutrality”.
He is accustomed, as we say, to the “good lamb drinks two mothers” policy. And to date, it has worked!
The traditional friend of the Serbs is Russia. The two countries are deeply connected by language, religion, history, economy and military and security agreements.
But above all they are linked by that pan-Slavic ideology which, as Kosovars, Bosniaks, Croats and Montenegrins are well aware, is aggressive, imperialist and based on ethnic homogeneity.
It is no coincidence that the Belgrade government refused to participate in the Western sanctions package against Moscow, and Serbia was the only country where, at the beginning of the Russian occupation, mass demonstrations in favor of Putin and Moscow were seen.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and EU Special Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell have repeatedly expressed concern that Russian tensions could spread to the Western Balkans.
And these alarms came precisely from the presence in the Balkans of Serbia’s policy and from its claims to Kosovo, which have never been extinguished since the end of the war in Yugoslavia.
Brussels, based on the given alarm, immediately sent several hundred soldiers to Bosnia to strengthen the European mission and to keep Republika Srpska under control, where Dodik threatens daily with separatist actions.
The Pristina government has sought to join NATO, which has just opened a military base in Albania.
What is really troubling for the EU in the region is Serbia with its policies, which Europe is probably watching carefully for the first time since the end of the war in the Balkans, as well as the Russian warships that have been stationed in the Mediterranean since several months.
In the Balkans, the socio-economic situation of many countries is far from stable and many border ethnic coexistence issues are still open since the end of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
And it is here that Putin, in trouble on the Ukrainian front, could use the Serbs to set fire to conflicts that have never been extinguished for decades.
For this reason, without question, the priority is the war front in Ukraine.
But special attention in the very near future will be given to European policies with Serbia and the opening of real doors to Albania and North Macedonia.
Strengthening the eastern front is today the political and military priority for a Europe at risk since the end of World War II.
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