EXPLAINER: Putin’s Balkan narrative argument for Ukraine war

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Associated Press
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Well before Russian tanks and troops rolled into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was using the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to ostensibly offer justification for the invasion of a sovereign European country. The Russian president has been particularly focused on NATO’s bombardment of Serbia in 1999 and the West’s acceptance of Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008. He has claimed that both created a precedent that shattered international law and order, giving him an apparent excuse to intervene in Ukraine. There are many differences between the Russian attack on Ukraine and the wars in the Balkans that left more than 120,000 people dead and millions homeless. There are also some similarities.