SUMMARY: Russia’s strategy in the Western Balkans is no longer driven by territorial ambition but by a sophisticated hybrid campaign that exploits the region’s unresolved histories, fragile institutions, and deep identity divisions. Instead of armies, Moscow uses political proxies, clerical networks, disinformation pipelines, energy leverage, and criminal-intelligence channels to fracture societies and obstruct Euro-Atlantic integration. Serbia serves as the central hub of this influence system, while Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, Kosovo’s north, Montenegro’s identity fault lines, Albania’s narrative vulnerabilities, and North Macedonia’s polarized information space each form critical pressure points. These dynamics allow Russia to generate instability at low cost, keeping the region strategically paralyzed and politically pliable. The Western Balkans thus operate as a testing ground where the Kremlin refines hybrid tactics later deployed across Europe. The months ahead will bring more micro-crises, propaganda surges, and calibrated escalations — not open conflict, but a deeper erosion of democratic resilience.

Introduction

The Western Balkans remain one of the most contested informational and geopolitical frontlines in Europe. Though the guns of the 1990s are silent, Russia’s hybrid campaign has transformed the region into an invisible battlefield — one fought with propaganda, proxies, clerical influence, and corruption rather than conventional weapons.

Over the past decade, Moscow has refined its strategy into a dense network of local partnerships and psychological operations intended to fracture societies, stall Euro-Atlantic integration, and keep the region geopolitically pliable. Through sympathetic political elites, clerical structures, oligarchic investments, and coordinated disinformation flows from Belgrade to Banja Luka and beyond, Kremlin narratives infiltrate domestic debates under the guise of “sovereignty,” “tradition,” and “balance.”

Yet resistance persists. Even with shrinking resources and rising pressure, a small circle of committed journalists, public intellectuals, and civil society organisations continue to expose manipulation and defend democratic resilience. Their work is often underfunded, frequently targeted, and increasingly isolated — but it remains one of the last reliable barriers against the region’s slide into systemic disinformation and authoritarian influence. The struggle is uneven — but it will determine whether the Western Balkans remain a testing ground for authoritarian influence or evolve into a resilient democratic space aligned with Europe’s future.

A Region of Old Wounds, New Wars, and Open Doors

In the Western Balkans, war never fully ends — it changes shape. The artillery is silent, yet conflict survives in subtler, more insidious forms. Borders may be settled, but loyalties, narratives, and truths remain contested. The region is still haunted by an unburied past: wars never fully mourned, peace never fully consolidated, justice never entirely served.

More than two decades after the last armed clashes in North Macedonia, the region stands at a crossroads of memory and manipulation. Fragile institutions, contested histories, and polarized media ecosystems mean that yesterday’s divisions can be reignited with a single post, sermon, or headline. Into this volatile environment, Russia has deployed tools of persuasion rather than troops: propaganda packaged as patriotism, corruption presented as diplomacy, and influence networks embedded in the grey zones between politics, business, and belief.

This is the soft terrain of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare — a psychological and cultural battlefield where information replaces ammunition, identity becomes an instrument, and nationalism a Trojan horse for foreign interests. The region’s complexity makes it both a playground and a proving ground for Moscow’s experiments in chaos: a place where history is weaponized, sovereignty negotiated, and truth becomes a matter of allegiance.

Though geographically distant from the war in Ukraine, the Western Balkans remain strategically indispensable — a corridor between East and West, a Mediterranean gateway, and a real-time test of whether democratic resolve can withstand sustained external pressure. Here, the past is never past, and the future is still being fought over — not with armies, but with allegiance, fear, and disinformation.

Hybrid Warfare: An Old Playbook Rewritten for the Balkans

Russian influence in the Western Balkans is not new. It draws on historical, religious, and cultural ties, but since 2014 — and especially after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — it has been reengineered into a sophisticated, multi-domain hybrid strategy. What once operated through diplomacy and ideology now functions through information manipulation, infiltration, and institutional corrosion.

Moscow’s aim is not territorial conquest but strategic paralysis — keeping the region divided internally, distrustful of the West, and perpetually vulnerable to manipulation. The core objective is to obstruct EU and NATO integration so that Moscow retains pressure points it can activate through local crises and instability.

Hybrid warfare in the Balkans unfolds as a coordinated choreography. Disinformation floods public space with conspiracy theories about NATO expansion, Western “decadence,” and alleged interference. Political actors adopt Kremlin narratives under populist slogans of “sovereignty,” “neutrality,” or “traditional values.”

Religious soft power amplifies this effort. The Serbian Orthodox Church and aligned institutions operate as transnational conduits of Moscow’s worldview, reinforcing a vision of a “Russian world” defined less by geography than by ideological allegiance.

Economic and energy dependencies provide additional leverage. Through state-linked companies, opaque investments, and oligarchic partnerships, Russia cultivates influence that penetrates institutions and political parties, creating durable dependencies that resist reform.

Meanwhile, the line between intelligence and criminality has all but disappeared. Smuggling networks, illicit financing, and espionage overlap to create a single ecosystem of pressure. Together, these elements form a hybrid campaign that is as invisible as it is effective — reshaping the Western Balkans not with tanks, but with narratives, networks, and fear.

Proxies and Proxy Networks: How Russian Influence Operates Across the Western Balkans

Russian hybrid warfare does not rely on imported operatives; it succeeds because local actors embed Moscow’s objectives into domestic political conflicts, identity narratives, media ecosystems, and economic structures. These intermediaries supply the legitimacy, emotional resonance, and institutional access that foreign influence alone cannot achieve. Their roles differ across contexts, but together they form a resilient ecosystem capable of amplifying instability and undermining Euro-Atlantic integration.

Serbia: The Command Node of Regional Influence

Serbia is the operational hub where Russian messaging, energy leverage, and political alignment converge before radiating into the wider region. President Aleksandar Vučić maintains a façade of EU commitment while cultivating strategic ambiguity, refusing sanctions on Russia, and relying on Moscow in multilateral arenas. SNS’s dominance across institutions and media ensures that themes of sovereignty, neutrality, Western hypocrisy, and Slavic brotherhood permeate public discourse, often indistinguishable from Kremlin narratives.

Aleksandar Vulin anchors the explicitly pro-Russian wing. His networks within security services, intelligence structures, and veterans’ groups provide connective tissue between state institutions and deniable actors. Together with pro-government tabloids and broadcasters, these networks form a highly reactive information ecosystem capable of producing and exporting narratives within hours. Sputnik Serbia and RT Balkan integrate seamlessly into this environment, extending influence into Republika Srpska, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.

The Serbian Orthodox Church adds ideological depth through ROC-aligned messaging about Orthodoxy, moral decay in the West, and spiritual unity. Serbia’s dependence on Russian gas and Gazprom’s control of NIS reinforce economic vulnerability, while grey-zone networks — paramilitary remnants, smuggling structures along the Drina corridor, and Telegram communities — provide mobility and deniability. Serbia is not simply influential; it distributes hybrid influence across the Western Balkans.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Fragmented Structures, Dual Vulnerability

Bosnia and Herzegovina is Moscow’s most exploitable environment. Its fragmented constitutional structure offers multiple entry points, the most significant within Republika Srpska. Milorad Dodik remains Russia’s most dedicated proxy, using entity institutions, loyalist media, business networks tied to Russian interests, and SPC–ROC clerical alignment to undermine state cohesion. His governance model — escalate, threaten secession, delegitimize OHR and EUFOR, extract concessions, then normalize — mirrors the political technology documented in CIVIL’s Early Warning Report The Engineered Deadlock. RS functions as a platform for systemic destabilization.

In the Federation, Russia’s influence is diffuse rather than centralized. Political fragmentation, Bosniak rivalries, hardline Croat demands, and entrenched corruption produce openings for narratives portraying Sarajevo as divided, externally manipulated, or fundamentally dysfunctional. Sympathetic media amplify contradictory yet mutually reinforcing messages about EU unreliability, NATO selectiveness, and state-level paralysis. This dual environment — an active proxy in RS and an unstable Federation — allows Moscow to apply constant pressure.

Kosovo: Pressure Point and Escalation Theatre

Kosovo is not a Russian base; it is a strategic pressure point activated indirectly through Belgrade. Influence flows through Srpska Lista, parallel governance structures in the north, and a patronage system linking livelihoods to Serbian state institutions. This arrangement is reinforced by Serbian tabloids, talk shows, and Telegram networks that can manufacture or amplify crises in minutes.

De-contextualized videos, manipulated images, and rumours can trigger mobilization quickly, creating escalation loops that test KFOR and EULEX. The Serbian Orthodox Church reinforces narratives of grievance and persecution, while grey-zone actors — smugglers, veteran groups, and “patriotic associations” — supply the ability to stage deniable micro-escalations. Kosovo thus becomes a controlled escalation arena serving both Serbian and Russian strategic interests.

Montenegro: Fragile Institutions, Deep Identity Fault Lines

Montenegro’s vulnerability lies in its institutional fragility, fragmented politics, and unresolved identity tensions between civic-Montenegrin and Serb-Orthodox orientations. These divisions offer fertile ground for Russia-aligned influence, often channelled through Serbia’s political and clerical networks rather than Moscow directly.

Political actors with ties to Belgrade and Russia-friendly oligarchs exploit coalition weakness to block reforms and challenge NATO-aligned policies. Serbian media pipelines recycle anti-NATO narratives, allegations of foreign interference, and claims that Montenegro’s civic identity is a Western fabrication. The Serbian Orthodox Church retains significant mobilization capacity, visible during the 2019–2020 mass protests and continuing to shape attitudes toward nationalism and Western alignment.

Montenegro lacks a single dominant proxy but hosts a constellation of actors who collectively sustain a zone of strategic ambiguity — an arrangement that allows Moscow to obstruct reforms and trigger volatility when advantageous.

Albania: Low Footprint, High Narrative Yield

Albania has strong Euro-Atlantic consensus and limited clerical or political vulnerability to Russia. But it remains exposed in the information domain, where narratives originating elsewhere can quickly infiltrate domestic debate. Influence flows through Serbia-based outlets, Kosovo portals, and North Macedonian fringe media rather than local proxies.

For example, the 2025 revival of allegations tied to Nello Trocchia’s Invincibili illustrates how dormant material can be repurposed to undermine Albania during sensitive EU-accession moments. Although the book does not implicate Edi Rama personally, selective reinterpretation by regional actors weaponized its contents. Political tensions between Rama and Albin Kurti further amplified the narrative, allowing fringe outlets to turn a marginal story into a broader tool of disinformation.

Albania is resilient structurally but vulnerable to external narrative manipulation, particularly when cross-border political rivalries provide fertile ground. It is, therefore, not a proxy base but a narrative amplifier in Moscow’s hybrid ecosystem.

North Macedonia: A Fragmented but Potent Proxy Environment

North Macedonia lacks a single dominant Kremlin-aligned actor, but influence is embedded in a constellation of political and media structures that echo Russian frames. Levica openly and consistently advances anti-NATO, anti-EU, and sovereigntist narratives; VMRO-DPMNE and a large share of ZNAM increasingly embrace identity-driven narratives aligned with Moscow’s worldview; and aligned media outlets recycle Serbian and Russian content to shape domestic discourse.

CIVIL’s reports — Information Warfare and Propaganda Ecosystem in North Macedonia and Battlefield of Narratives — document how disinformation networks exploit institutional fragility, reform fatigue, and interethnic tensions. The threat is diffuse: multiple actors adopting Russia-compatible narratives for domestic gain.

Differ in Intensity, Converge in Purpose

Across the Western Balkans, proxies differ in scale and form, but their strategic function is consistent: to divide societies, paralyze institutions, slow EU and NATO integration, and keep the region in a state of manageable volatility. Serbia acts as the command node; Republika Srpska the primary leverage point; Kosovo the crisis engine; Montenegro the identity battleground; Albania the narrative amplifier; and North Macedonia the polarization frontier. Together, they form Moscow’s most effective hybrid theatre in Europe — a system not designed to seize territory, but to obstruct progress, fragment alliances, and keep the region suspended between stability and crisis.

Early Warning Indicators and Outlook (Nov 2025 – May 2026)

Russian hybrid operations are entering a heightened activation phase. Converging political cycles, unresolved disputes, and major EU–NATO milestones create an environment where Moscow-aligned actors can generate disproportionate strategic effects at low cost. The next six months will be defined by recurring micro-crises, synchronized propaganda surges, and calibrated escalations intended to paralyse institutions, deepen divisions, and erode trust in Euro-Atlantic processes.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is the most immediate flashpoint. Republika Srpska is likely to initiate another confrontation timed around the EU’s 2026 enlargement debates. Dodik will escalate threats of secession, attack OHR and EUFOR, and assert “exclusive competencies,” creating political paralysis framed as a defensive response to foreign interference. Russia’s role will be indirect but decisive — amplifying RS narratives, legitimizing brinkmanship, and portraying the EU and NATO as destabilizing forces. This cycle will freeze state-level decision-making without producing open conflict.

Serbia will continue its calibrated ambiguity. It will not initiate major crises but will capitalize on those emerging elsewhere, positioning itself as indispensable while reinforcing alignment with Moscow. Shifts in Vučić’s rhetoric, coordinated messaging from Vulin or SPS figures, tabloid-driven narrative surges, and high-profile ROC visits will signal Belgrade’s readiness to leverage instability. Serbia’s hybrid posture will escalate during EU milestones and soften when domestic pressure requires symbolic gestures toward Moscow.

Kosovo remains the most volatile arena. Russia influences events there through Belgrade’s networks, which can activate political, informational, and grey-zone capacities with little warning. The main risk lies in highly mediatized incidents: a viral arrest, an overnight barricade, a clash outside a municipal building. These manufactured crises will test NATO and EULEX while feeding narratives of Kosovo as unstable. Expect multiple short-lived flare-ups designed to drain EU bandwidth and normalize crisis as the region’s baseline.

Montenegro enters the period in a precarious state. Fragmented coalitions, unresolved identity tensions, and deepened influence from Serbian political and clerical structures create openings for destabilization. Russia-linked business figures and sympathetic media are likely to re-emerge in debates about energy, infrastructure, and governance. Coalition fractures and church-state conflicts could trigger political volatility, delaying reforms and weakening the pro-European bloc.

Albania is structurally resilient but shows vulnerability to external narrative manipulation. Actors will likely target Albania with disinformation waves designed to undermine its EU progress and exploit the Rama–Kurti rivalry. The Invincibili example demonstrated how dormant narratives can be revived at strategic moments. Expect repeated attempts to portray Albania as a weak link in NATO and an unstable partner in regional politics.

North Macedonia faces intensifying disinformation and polarization. Anti-EU and anti-NATO narratives from Levica, VMRO-aligned outlets, and ZNAM-linked influencers — increasingly supported by networks linked to Belgrade and the Russian Embassy — will likely escalate as EU negotiation milestones approach. CIVIL’s analyses show that Russian and Serbian narratives exploit interethnic tensions and institutional fatigue; the coming months will see increased use of AI-generated content, fabricated leaks, and identity-driven narratives to polarize society and weaken the constitutional process.

Across the region, cross-border trends will accelerate: synchronized narrative bursts tied to political milestones, religious soft-power cycles coordinated through SPC–ROC structures, AI-powered disinformation targeting institutions and democratic actors, and criminal networks acting as logistical and informational conduits for deniable operations.

The overall outlook for November 2025–May 2026 is clear: the Western Balkans will enter its most complex hybrid-threat environment since 2022. The region will not descend into war, but will experience orchestrated disruptions aimed at stalling EU integration, weakening institutions, and normalizing Kremlin-aligned narratives. By mid-2026, the landscape will likely feature engineered paralysis in Bosnia and Herzegovina, episodic crises in northern Kosovo, a surge of anti-EU messaging in North Macedonia, efforts to destabilize Montenegro, targeted disinformation attacks on Albania, and a Serbia that treats every crisis as strategic leverage.

Conclusion: The Western Balkans — the Laboratory of Russia’s Hybrid Operations

The Western Balkans remain Europe’s deepest unresolved security and political challenge — a region where the fractures of the 1990s intersect with modern hybrid warfare. War, ethnic cleansing, broken borders, and displacement remain within living memory, and unresolved disputes still shape the vulnerabilities Moscow exploits. For years, the EU and NATO responded with caution rather than strategy, prioritizing short-term stability and tolerating the rise of authoritarian spoilers. That hesitation created precisely the opening Russia now uses to probe and weaken Europe from within — narrative by narrative, crisis by crisis.

The Western Balkans are not just a target of Moscow’s influence; they are the laboratory where Russia refines the hybrid tactics later deployed across Europe. Disinformation playbooks, political infiltration, religious soft power, cyber disruption, and criminal-intelligence collaboration — all have been tested here before appearing in EU capitals. If the Balkans slip back into cycles of manipulation and externally engineered confrontation, the consequences will not remain contained. They will destabilize Southeast Europe, undermine NATO’s southern flank, and reverberate across the entire EU project.

Europe must respond with clarity, resolve, and unity. Anything less risks allowing the next continental crisis to begin where the last one never truly ended.

Read more:

Bosnia’s unity under threat from the hybrid destabilisation of the “Serbian World” — Voxeurop, 22 Oct. 2025 (https://voxeurop.eu/en/bosnia-bosnia-herzegovina-hybrid-destabilisation-serbia-russia/)

The Serbian World and Moscow’s Hand in the Balkans — Civil.Today, 17 Oct 2025 (https://civil.today/the-serbian-world-and-moscows-hand-in-the-balkans/)

Information Warfare and Propaganda Ecosystem in North Macedonia — Civil.Today, 29 Oct 2025 (https://civil.today/information-warfare-and-propaganda-ecosystem-in-north-macedonia/)

The Engineered Deadlock: Republika Srpska and the Politics of Paralysis — Civil.Today, 31 Oct 2025 (https://civil.today/the-engineered-deadlock-republika-srpska-and-the-politics-of-paralysis/)

New Alliances in a Divided Region: Confronting the Kremlin’s Aggression and the Balkans’ Old Ghosts — Civil.Today, 19 Apr 2025 (https://civil.today/new-alliances-in-a-divided-region-confronting-the-kremlins-aggression-and-the-balkans-old-ghosts/)

DANGEROUS POWER GAMES IN THE BALKANS: Nationalism, Hegemonism, and Russian Ties — Civil.Today, 31 Jan. 2025 (https://civil.today/dangerous-power-games-in-the-balkans-nationalism-hegemonism-and-russian-ties/)

PDF: Resilient Journalism: Countering Disinformation and Propaganda — published by CIVIL, 2023 (https://civilmedia.mk/wp-content/uploads/Resilient-Journalism-Countering-Disinformation-and-Propaganda-publication-EN.pdf)

General overviews / Russia & the Western Balkans:

Russia’s influence in the Western Balkans (European Parliamentary Research Service briefing) — details Moscow’s disinformation campaigns, role of Orthodox church, hybrid threats in the WB. (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/747096/EPRS_BRI%282023%29747096_EN.pdf)

Monitoring Influence & Disinformation Campaigns in the Western Balkans (ISD, Dec 2024) —analysis on disinformation ecosystems in the region (https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Monitoring-Influence-and-Disinformation-Campaigns-in-the-Western-Balkans.pdf)

Foreign Malign Influence in the Western Balkans (Humanity in Action) — includes Russia’s economic, media and narrative influence across WB countries (https://humanityinaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Foreign-Malign-Influence-in-the-Western-Balkans.pdf)

Russia’s Hybrid Warfare in the Western Balkans: Geopolitical Strategies and Proxy Actors (G Kuçi, Octopus Institute, 2024) — explores Russia’s tactics of using proxies, media manipulation, institutions (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384904084_RUSSIA%27S_HYBRID_WARFARE_IN_THE_WESTERN_BALKANS_GEOPOLITICAL_STRATEGIES_AND_PROXY_ACTORS)

Russian Narrative Proxies in the Western Balkans (GMFUS, 2019) — older but valuable for detailing how local actors propagate Kremlin narratives (https://www.gmfus.org/sites/default/files/Russian%20Narrative%20Proxies%20in%20Balkans.pdf)

Hybrid Boot: Russian Influence in the Western Balkans (CFWBS, Oct 2025) — specifically references the WB as a “base camp” for hybrid units (https://cfwbs.org/hybrid-boot-russian-influence-in-the-western-balkans/)

Russia’s hybrid warfare and geoeconomics in the … Southeast Europe (Defence24, recent) — shows Serbia as a hub and details geoeconomic/influence linkages (https://defence24.com/analysis-/russias-hybrid-warfare-and-geoeconomics-in-the-southeast-europe)

Monitoring Influence & Disinformation Campaigns in the Western Balkans  (ISD, 2024) The ISD report addresses pro-Kremlin actors, information environment vulnerability, media literacy gaps (https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Monitoring-Influence-and-Disinformation-Campaigns-in-the-Western-Balkans.pdf)

This article is part of CIVIL’s Hybrid Warfare Early Warning Report Series, produced within the Democracy Navigator project.

Prepared by: Jabir Deralla and the CIVIL Hybrid Threats Monitoring Team, in cooperation with partners within the Defending Democracy Global Initiative

Date/Place: 14 November 2025, Skopje

Project note: Produced within Democracy Navigator – Strategic Response to Disinformation and Hybrid Threats (2025), led by CIVIL – Center for Freedom and supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Editorial independence & responsibility: The analysis, findings, and conclusions presented in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of partners or supporters. CIVIL retains full editorial independence. Any errors remain the sole responsibility of the authors.

Use of AI (methods note): Research, drafting, structuring, and translation support were assisted by ChatGPT (OpenAI) under the authors’ direction. All AI-assisted outputs were reviewed, verified, and edited by humans. Responsibility for the content rests solely with the authors.

Sources & methodology: Open-source intelligence (OSINT), CIVIL monitoring logs, partner briefings, media analyses, and public records. Sensitive sources are anonymized for safety.

Corrections & contact: Please send corrections or comments to the CIVIL editorial team.

License: CC BY 4.0 — attribution required.