Russia’s military intervention in Crimea, which recently resulted in a referendum on the secession and annexation of the Crimean peninsula, has led to a verbal fistfight between the West and Russia, with both powers accusing each other of violations of international law and norms. One of the most inflammatory remarks was the recent comparison that Russian President Vladimir Putin made between Kosovo and Crimea. President Putin argued that Western precedent lends legitimacy to Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea: Because the UN International Court of Justice agreed that the
West’s 1998 intervention in Kosovo did not violate international law, Russian intervention in Crimea does not constitute a crime either. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that comparing Crimea with Kosovo is “shameful,” and other Western leaders have echoed her sentiments. But while there are substantial differences in the events that preceded declarations of independence in Kosovo and Crimea, the motivations for both Western and Russian involvement in these secession movements are more similar than Western political elites admit.
First, it is important to understand the basic territorial and demographic similarities between Kosovo and Crimea that contributed to secession. Kosovo, a republic that declared independence from Serbia, and Crimea, a republic in Eastern Ukraine, have very similar statuses in their respective Serbian and Ukrainian constitutions: They are autonomous regions with clearly defined borders, and their national parliaments have limited legislative power over such regions. At the time, Albanians constituted a large majority of Kosovo’s population, with Serbs comprising a minority constituency. In Crimea, Russians are the predominant group—with about 60.4 percent of the population—while about 24 percent of the population identifies as Ukrainian, and 10.2 percent are Crimean Tatars, a local ethnic group. Russian influence is demonstrated by language as well; approximately 77 percent of Crimeans speak Russian. This parallels Kosovo’s situation: Russians and Albanians are minorities in Ukraine and Serbia, but they comprise the majority in the regions of Crimea and Kosovo. This regional disparity, with the ethnic and cultural tensions that substantive difference from each nation’s main population entails, makes them conducive to secessionist movements.
However, we cannot dismiss the significant differences between the two regions that the West has pointed out. The objections by Western political elites — including President Barack Obama and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci — to the comparison between Crimea and Kosovo are centered on differences that lie beyond territorial and ethnic similarities. First, politicians have been quick to point out that while Kosovo faced a clear humanitarian crisis and war at the time of secession, this was not the case in Crimea. Secondly, Russia annexed Crimea, while Kosovo remains an independent state.
The humanitarian crisis in Kosovo at the end of last century created, according to Western leaders, distinct conditions around its secession from Serbia. After years of political repression of Albanians in Kosovo by the Serbian government, the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) undertook attacks on Serbian law-enforcing institutions as well as Serbian civilians. This demand for increased political power and independence caused conflicts between Yugoslav paramilitary and the KLA. In fact, the KLA was considered a terrorist organization by some Western governments, but was then delisted without formal explanation. Two contrasting statements were made by US special envoys: one by Robert Gelbard, saying that the KLA “is, without any questions, a terrorist group,” and another by Richard Holbrook, legitimizing the KLA’s violence by granting them a spot in the Kosovar Albanian peace negotiation team. After these conflicts escalated and Serbians perceived the KLA as wanting to achieve an ethnically homogenous Kosovo, the then-Yugoslavian army went on the offensive — a tactic resulting in thousands of civilian deaths and the mass exodus of around 800,000 Kosovo Albanians to the neighboring Macedonia and Albania.
After failed Western sanctions pressuring the army to retreat and to negotiate peace, as well as continued failures by the UN to employ a mission in Kosovo, NATO launched an aerial bombing campaign aimed at exclusively Serbian military targets, but the campaign had a large collateral effect on civilians, causing 2,500 civilian deaths as well as severe infrastructure damage. According to NATO, this operation — the first one unauthorized by the UN — was justifiable on the grounds of a serious threat that the Serbians would engage in ethnic cleansing of the Kosovar Albanians. These fears stemmed from the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia, in which the Bosnian Serb army massacred more than 8,000 men and boys of Albanian descent. Nevertheless, because NATO’s bombardment of Yugoslavia was unauthorized by the Security Council, it was a clear violation of the UN Charter and therefore illegal. Despite this, NATO succeeded in making Serbian forces retreat and secured the return of Albanian civilians to their homes, and on June 9, 1999, the Kumanovo Treaty came into effect, replacing Serbian police with UN civil and security forces in Kosovo.
After nine years of UN governance in Kosovo, the Kosovo parliament — excluding the 11 Serbian members who boycotted the vote — unanimously voted in favor of secession from Serbia and the establishment of an independent state. This decision was applauded by the Western states, which almost immediately recognized and welcomed Kosovo into the international community. Russia reacted with condemnation, while Serbia deemed the decision unconstitutional and still considers Kosovo as part of its territory to this day.
While the humanitarian crisis was no doubt large, with civilian deaths in the thousands and refugees nearing a million, it does not make Kosovo’s secession legitimate in the eyes of international law. While the situation leading up to Kosovo’s declaration of independence differed from Crimea’s — one situation involved heightened loss of life, fear of genocide and a humanitarian crisis while the other involved primarily political strife and riots — independence cannot be considered a prize that goes only to the most oppressed populations. No matter the moral or political background, both regions claimed independence in violation of the territorial integrity and constitutions of their respective countries. This makes their praise or condemnation from Western and Russian leaders contingent less on their actual validity within international law than these countries’ geopolitical interests.
After Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence, Serbia filed a request for an advisory opinion by the UN International Court of Justice regarding the so-called illegal secession of Kosovo. The ICJ ruled that it “considers that general international law contains no applicable prohibition of declaration of independence.” Then-President of Serbia Boris Tadić warned that this ruling would set a “new principle that would destabilize numerous regions in the world.” This prediction came true in Crimea. Soon after the ousting of the Ukrainian president Yanukovych, the Russian government sent in its army, claiming that it had a duty to protect the human rights and interests of the Russian majority in Crimea. The action clearly violated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — an agreement between the United States, Russia and the Ukraine granting the latter national security assurance. While this intervention was viewed by both Ukraine and the West as a gross violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, Crimeans were, in some cases, said to be welcoming the Russian army. Soon, a referendum was held in Crimea on the question of secession and annexation, to which around 97 percent of the approximately 82 percent voter turnout favored joining the Russian Federation. While this appears to speak to Russia’s favor, a poll conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology suggests that only 41 percent of the population in Crimea actually favored joining the Russian federation, perhaps hinting at illegitimacy and corruption in the referendum. But regardless of its legitimacy, the referendum remains unconstitutional under Ukrainian law, which states that such referendums must be nationwide. If the West had not ignored Serbia’s concerns about Kosovo’s legitimacy, Russia may not have been given the green light to do the same in Crimea. Russia’s publicized concern for the future of Crimea’s Tatar population under a new Ukrainian government justified their intervention under human rights concerns similar to those noted by the West in Kosovo.
The other commonly raised objection to the comparison is Russian interests in the annexation of Crimea. Russia’s strategic interests in Crimea were indisputable in Russia’s decision to invade, conduct a questionable referendum and eventually proceed with the annexation. According to Western opponents of Russian intervention, this aspect of Crimea’s secession, which differs greatly from the path taken by Kosovo, makes it an illegal act. This argument is right about the illegitimacy and the aggressive nature of Russia’s maneuvers to preserve its interests and influence in Crimea. But what it overlooks are the similarities between the Russian motives in Crimea and Western motives in Kosovo. While the West may have had legitimate humanitarian concerns, they also had similar motives to Russia’s in mind: financial interest and regional influence.
In this critical respect, Kosovo and Crimea are one and the same: Great Powers have seen and continue to see them as areas of great importance for maintaining or furthering their spheres of dominance. Their paths to independence reflect their position in relation to these hegemonic nations. Russian interests in Crimea are clear: Crimea is of strategic relevance to preserve the country’s access to the Mediterranean and to natural gas resources, and is important culturally and religiously for Russia. While the West’s interests in Kosovo are more latent, they are nevertheless present, as the West sought to create loyal political establishments and spread economic ties through Kosovo.
Miloševič’s Serbia posed a serious obstacle to Western motives. Miloševič kept Serbia’s Orthodox ties with Russia and refused both neoliberalism and democratization because they were seen as a threat to his authoritarian regime. While Western leaders largely ignored many mass atrocities in the 1990s, most notably the genocide in strategically and economically unimportant Rwanda, it changed its tune when its interests in Kosovo were threatened by Miloševič. NATO’s intervention in Serbia was a win-win for the West: Not only did it eventually lead to Kosovo’s independence and the establishment of a pro-Western country in Eastern Europe, but the war was also conducive to the demonstrations that toppled Miloševič and ultimately empowered a more Western-oriented political elite.
Another explanation for the West’s sudden, vehement stand for Kosovo is economic gain. The US secretary of state under Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and US diplomat James W. Pardew, who was a heavily involved figure in both the Kosovo War and post-independence years for Kosovo, both placed bids for their firms to take over one of Kosovo’s most profitable companies: Post and Telecom of Kosovo. Numerous US ex-officials returned to Kosovo for business, with coal, telecommunications and other lucrative deals in the works with Americans. Among these profiteers were Wesley K. Clark, a retired army official who led the NATO bombardment and Mark Tavlarides, the then-legislative director of the White House National Security Council. While Kosovo has not been annexed by a Western country as Crimea was by Russia, one can certainly argue that with the powerful influence of Western nations in the country today, it stands as a prime example of neoimperialism.
Kosovo and Crimea represent two distinct types of countries and conflict, but in evaluating the two cases on the basis of the legality of their secessions or the influences of surrounding powers, the two situations are as not as different as they may originally seem. In both instances, the regions violated their states’ constitutions upon secession, and in both the regions served as buffers for external hegemonic powers seeking to pursue their strategic goals and interests. Incentivized by these interests, neither Russia nor the West adhered to domestic or international laws when dealing with Kosovo and Crimea. The status of these countries is, and will continue to be, disputed. While Kosovo is currently considered separate from Serbia by the West, it will not be given a seat in the UN nor will it enjoy the rights of a fully recognized state. Meanwhile, Crimea’s annexation is considered illegal by Ukraine and the West and it will likely remain central to international negotiations for some time. But this does not change the fact that both the West and Russia achieved their interests — Russia kept its geopolitical dominance in Crimea, and the West has established a loyal government in Kosovo. However, one chief difference remains. Russia, aggressive as it is, did not consider the international response and criticism it would incur when it hurried to annex Crimea. Meanwhile, the West was careful to wash, iron, fold and carefully hide its dirty laundry, smoothing the road for them to now cast accusations while Russia preserves its own influence in Crimea.