As NATO Membership Gets Closer, Montenegro Feels The Heat From Russia

RFE/RL Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty ^ | June 12, 2014 | Srdjan Jankovic and Robert Coalson

[WhiskeyX]

P ODGORICA -- Apparently Moscow's red line against NATO membership extends well beyond Moscow's old empire.

Concern about further expansion of the trans-Atlantic alliance has driven Moscow's harsh policies in its immediate neighborhood -- with Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia in particular feeling Russia's wrath. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov calls the prospect of such expansion "the last straw."

And now Moscow is seeking to extend the no-NATO zone farther west, beyond the former Soviet space -- and even beyond the old Warsaw Pact. The next country in Moscow's sights seems to be the tiny Balkan state of Montenegro.

[goldstategop]

Montenegrins are Serbs and Russia is reminding them of the historical ties that have long united Russians and the South Slav peoples.

[WhiskeyX]

More accurate is the story of how the oppressions by the Russians have divided the Slavs in all regions of Eurasia. Montenegro wants nothing to do with Russia, and they will join NATO to defend their decision.

[Verginius Rufus]

Russia remembers its ties to the other Slavs when convenient and forgets them at other times. Ask the Poles about how warmly Russia has treated them over the centuries. Common Slavic backgrounds did not stop the Red Army from raping and killing many civilians in the countries they were "liberating" in 1944-45.

Milovan Djilas, later famous as a dissident, was a Montenegrin. One of Stalin's grudges against Tito, leading to the Tito/Stalin break of 1948, was that Tito had not taken action against Djilas when he complained about the rapes and murders committed by the Red Army in Belgrade in 1944.