Recognition of Kosovo’s illegitimate independence may well trigger the domino effect

The Chairman of the Russian Parliament’s upper house Committee for International Affairs Mikhail Margelov says in a statement that recognition of Kosovo’s illegitimate independence despite the will of a majority of the UN Security Council members could trigger the so-called domino effect. According to the Russian MP, the precedent, created in the Balkans, may well provoke a kind of a parade of sovereignties both in Europe and elsewhere. The Chairman of the Russian Chamber of Trade and Commerce Yevgeny Primakov said in a comment on the situation in the Balkans, in a live TV appearance, that the United States and some of its European allies insist on Kosovo’s independence because, on the one hand, they seek to justify their 1999 bombing raids on Serbia, on the one hand, while on the other, they try to make the use of force without any UN Security Council involvement a matter of course. Russia’s former Prime Minister feels the situation in Kosovo is sort of continuation of what efforts are being made in Iraq. The last Soviet Presidetn Mikhail Gorbachev warned that the self-proclamation of Kosovo’s independence is launching a process with consequences that are difficult to predict both for the Balkans and Europe at large.