yugoslavias implosion

Milošević tried to return Yugoslavia to the centralist model that
had been in operation until 1966 and expected that Russia would
support this course out of ideological and strategic considerations.
Indeed, Milošević even expected that Russia would back the Serbian
cause militarily, if necessary.
After Milošević left Belgrade for The Hague, many political
leaders continued to embrace a pro-Russian, anti-Western position.
Koštunica’s attitude toward Russia was of considerable importance
in his selection (by the old centers of power such as the military,
the Academy, and the spc) as a candidate for the presidency.
Both as fry president and as Serbian prime minister, Koštunica pursued
a pro-Russia policy, which came to full expression in 2006 when
he instituted a policy in which Serbia proclaimed it was neutral but
would at the same time rely on Russia. 495 Koštunica abandoned the
strategy of Serbia’s rapprochement with the eu and, in December
2007, turned down a stabilization and association agreement with
the eu due to the eu’s insistence on Serbia’s full cooperation with
the Hague Tribunal. His move coincided with Russia’s return to the
international stage as a major energy power.
Trust in the illusion that Russia would act in defense of Serbian
territorial interests influenced the perceptions of the Serbian nationalists
and their preparations for war. Serbian nationalists believed
that it was only Russia’s loss of world-power status which had prevented
it from committing itself in the 1990s in the Balkans on a large
scale. A segment of the Russian elite fueled hopes in Serbia that Russia
would return to the international stage as a world power in its
own right and encouraged Serbia to persevere in its resistance to the
495 The National Assembly of Serbia adopted a Resolution on neutrality on 16 December 2007 . It
stated that “due to the overall role of NATO, from the illegal bombing of Serbia in 1999 without
Security Council resolution until annex 11 of the rejected Ahtisaari plan stipulating that NATO
should be the ‘final authority’ in the ‘independent state of Kosovo’, National Assembly of the
Republic of Serbia decided to declare armed neutrality in relation to the existing military
alliances until an eventual referendum when the final decision on that issue would be passed”
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