Vladimir Putin warns over rise of neo-Nazism before Serbia visit

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/vladimir-putin-nazism-warning-serbia-visit

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Vladimir Putin will seek to use a military parade in Belgrade on Thursday to portray Russia and its allies as a bulwark against the rise of neo-Nazism across Europe.

The cold war-style parade involving tanks, phalanxes of soldiers and a flyover by military jets will be the first of its kind that Serbia has held for nearly three decades. The last time, the country was still part of socialist Yugoslavia.

The event is to commemorate the liberation of Belgrade from Nazi occupation by Yugoslav Partisans and the Red Army 70 years ago. The date of the ceremony was moved forward four days to fit in with Putin’s timetable.

At a time of deep rifts between Russia and the European Union over Ukraine, Putin’s one-day visit will be an opportunity to show he has friends and influence close to the heart of Europe. For the Serbian government it is a chance to curry favour with an important friend and energy supplier at a time of chronic economic crisis with winter approaching, and to counter rightwing criticism that it is leaning too far towards the west in the hope of eventual EU membership.

For much of Wednesday the skies above Belgrade shook as Russian jets rehearsed formation flying for the parade. Rightwing groups had plastered central Belgrade with pictures of Putin and the slogan “Let us welcome our president”.

As part of intense security measures for the visit, roads in Belgrade and to the airport will be closed on Thursday, as will airspace over the capital. Residents who live in buildings along the route have been ordered to keep their windows closed, their blinds shut and to remove any laundry drying outside, as a precaution against snipers.

In an interview due to be published in the Serbian newspaper Politika, Putin is expected to attribute the simmering conflict in Ukraine and friction between Russia and its neighbours to the resurgence of Nazi ideology.

“Unfortunately, the vaccine against the Nazi virus, developed at the Nuremberg trials, is losing its effectiveness in some European countries. A clear sign of this trend is open manifestations of neo-Nazism, which have become common in Latvia and other Baltic states,” Putin told Politika, according to early excerpts published by the Russian agency RIA Novosti.

“Today, our common goal is to counter the glorification of Nazism, firmly counter attempts to revise the results of world war II and consequently fight any forms and manifestations of racism, xenophobia, aggressive nationalism and chauvinism.”

The Serbian prime minister, Aleksandar Vucic, said there was no contradiction between his government’s aspirations for EU accession and its warm welcome for Putin. “Serbia is going towards the EU, which is a strategical goal, but that it will not impose sanctions on Russia for many reasons, economical being one of them,” he said in a television interview this week. “Our policy is not swaying but firm, hard, decisive and clear. For a year and a half it is not moving, neither to the left nor to the right.”

Vucic said he hoped the visit would lead to trade and investment deals, particularly in agriculture and energy. But any such deals would cool relations between Belgrade and Brussels, which has slapped sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and its armed support for Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Putin is expected to press the Serbian government to start construction work on the planned South Stream pipeline intended to bring Russian gas to southern Europe. Belgrade has been hesitating because of a dispute between Moscow and the EU, which wants the pipeline to be available to all gas producers, not just Russia’s Gazprom. Gazprom owns a majority stake in Serbia’s main energy corporation.

Putin is due to sign seven agreements with the Serbian government while he is in Belgrade, including one on exchange of military technology, a further irritant to Brussels, which has imposed an arms embargo on Russia. There will also be an agreement on the “immunity and privileges” of a Serbian-Russian humanitarian response centre set up last year in the city of Nis.

According to Jelena Milic, head of the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, the Nis centre has been used not just for flood relief and fighting forest fires but also to supply equipment to “civil protection” units run by minority Serbs in northern Kosovo. Russia has supported Serbian opposition to Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence, refusing to recognise the former Serbian province.

“There has been a mushrooming of pro-Russian NGOs in north Kosovo,” Milic said. “The worst of the seven agreements is the one giving special status to the Russians at the Nis base. It is a completely non-transparent agreement. Out of the blue, they are using a Sofa [status of forces agreement] template used by the US for military bases.”

Jovo Bakic, a sociologist at Belgrade University said: “The Kosovo issue is rather painful for the majority of Serbs and this is an opportunity for the government to show gratitude for Russian non-recognition of Kosovo.

“It’s not often presidents of powerful countries come to Serbia, and meanwhile it’s important for Russia to show it has friends in Europe. Of course this could have been done without the parade. It’s not really necessary to organise such an expensive event, but politicians – especially in Serbia – are not known for being reasonable.”