Putin already has at least one client regime in Central EuropeMOSCOW — While the world’s attention is understandably focused on the Kremlin’s growing threats against Ukraine , a less-noticed political scandal brewing in the Balkans has served as a reminder that Vladimir Putin already has at least one client regime in Central Europe. According to a story first reported by the Serbian press in December, our seminar was wiretapped by the country’s Security Intelligence Agency. A week later, Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin flew to Moscow and handed the transcripts to Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a key Putin associate. Two weeks later, Pivovarov was arrested Belarus-style , on a Polish passenger plane about to take off from the St. Petersburg airport. For years, then-Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic presided over the last major bastion of authoritarianism in Central Europe, making his regime notorious for the murders of opponents, state censorship, fraudulent elections and virulent state-driven nationalism.

Source: Washington Post January 19, 2022 21:13 UTC