Five days in Kosovo
The Balkans as a battleground for disinformation
Note: From February 21 - 25, I was in Kosovo to keynote the first-ever Balkan Disinformation Summit and to collaborate with the U.S. Embassy in Pristina.
At 5 a.m. in Pristina, Kosovo, the air smelled like wildfire. Ash and soot were all around, and the simple act of breathing could irritate the lungs. My hotel room was quite warm, so I opened the window to cool it down, only to quickly close it again; the hot air inside was better than the clouded air outside. No one was awake yet downtown; the streets were empty, birds cackled in the trees, and a neon Coca-Cola sign buzzed in the distance. Twenty-five years after civil war, an early morning in Kosovo could feel like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie.
Pristina’s air pollution comes from fossil fuels, specifically coal and automotive exhaust. Approximately 5 to 10 miles outside the city, two massive coal plants—Kosovo A and Kosovo B—send plumes of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere each day. The plants generate electricity for the capital of more than 200,000 people and its suburbs. But it comes at a cost. The particulate matter in Pristina’s air is nearly 2.5 times the World Health Organization’s annual guidelines. Kosovo’s nitrogen oxides emissions reached 22,846 tonnes in 2020. Coupled with heavy traffic congestion (there is virtually no public transit in Kosovo), Kosovars are, literally, breathing in toxic fumes each day. The pollution is responsible for at least 4,000 premature deaths each year.
For these reasons I wore a mask during my five days in Kosovo, but I was the only one. To Kosovars, I was told, this was normal. “Electricity is a security issue,” my host told me with resignation, and he was right. Without reliable power, Kosovo would be even more vulnerable than it already is, a fragile nation in constant conflict with its neighbor Serbia and fighting for international recognition since it declared independence in 2008. Only 100 countries out of 193 in the United Nations recognize Kosovo (Serbia claims the number is lower), and Kosovo is not an official member of the U.N., NATO or the European Union. Kosovo formally applied to join the E.U. in 2022—a process that will take years and depends on stabilized relations with Serbia—yet E.U. members Greece, Spain, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus still do not recognize it. Slightly larger than Delaware, and ranked 151st in the world for GDP, without electricity Kosovo would have little chance for economic development, quality of life, or sovereignty.
Where Kosovo is rich is in coal. The country has the 5th largest lignite coal reserves in the world and the 3rd largest in Europe. Coal-generated power has fueled rapid changes since the Yugoslavia War ended in 1999: new highways, new high-rises, new institutions, new governments, a new middle class and new international partnerships. Now, Kosovo must chart a new energy future, and in my five days in the country I heard about several solar projects with investors from Germany, Great Britain, Turkey and the United States. The nations’ first solar auction was recently made possible by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Kosovo is also rich in admiration for the United States. In 1999, when Serbia (which is predominantly Orthodox Christian) waged an ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovo (which is predominantly Albanian Muslim), it was airstrikes by the U.S. and its NATO allies that ended the massacres. The bombings also damaged 25,000 homes and destroyed hundreds of miles of roads and railways, necessitating massive investment from the international community to rebuild. In the past 25 years, the U.S. government—and its taxpayers—have poured more than $1 billion into Kosovo; in 2022 alone, America delivered $62 million to Kosovo via USAID and the U.S. Department of State. As a result, despite being a majority-Muslim country, Kosovo has remained staunchly pro-America. In downtown Pristina, American flags wave in the wind; there is a replica of the Statue of Liberty; and major thoroughfares are named after Bill Clinton, George Bush and Bob Dole. The country celebrates the 4th of July and my host had a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his bedroom. He told me that Pristina was one of the best places in the world to be an American. It was probably safer to be an American Jew in Pristina than in New York.
The U.S.-Kosovo alliance is at a crossroads, however—which partly explains why I was in Kosovo in the first place. The current Kosovo government is the least friendly to the United States since independence. The Prime Minister has promised his constituents a hard-line approach to Serbia, leaning into Kosovo nationalism in ways that mirror nationalist rhetoric on the rise in other parts of the world. The government has taken unilateral actions independent of the U.S. and E.U. in ways it never has before. A series of statements in February from U.S. officials cautioned that U.S. support of Kosovo will become more complicated if Pristina continues to go it alone. “I don't think I've ever seen such a deep division,” U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill told Voice of America last year, than “what we have going right now between Pristina and Washington.”
There is another factor, though: Russia. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022—and indeed, even earlier—Russian propaganda and disinformation have inundated the Balkans. Such was the case when I visited Bulgaria and North Macedonia last year, and it continues to be the case in Kosovo this year. The reasons are complicated, and merit more explanation than this single newsletter allows. In short:
Russia understands the alliance between the U.S. and western Europe to be incredibly strong, particularly among NATO members. But eastern and southeastern Europe are seen as vulnerable, open to Russian influence and aligning behind Kremlin interests. Russia has taken numerous steps to strengthen its presence in the Balkans through Russian-controlled television and radio stations, social media influence campaigns, business ventures, bribing or cajoling elected officials, and other means.
This has put the Balkans squarely in the geopolitical crosshairs. Russia wants the Balkans aligned with its interests; the U.S. and the E.U. have countered by increasing their presence in the region to align the Balkans with their interests. That includes E.U. membership for North Macedonia and Kosovo, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. And of course, each of the Balkan countries has its own interests, including their ethnic and national identities, rivalries with neighbors, access to ports and markets, and strengthening their economies and militaries.
The invasion of Ukraine has only further complicated the situation. Kosovo, which is pro-America, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine. Serbia—which allies with Russia due to common religion (Christian Orthodox) and common ethnicity (both are Slavic)—has doubled-down on its friendship with Moscow. In countries such as Bosnia, North Macedonia and Bulgaria, public sentiment and government response to the Ukraine war has been mixed at best (this article has an excellent rundown). Part of U.S. and E.U. attention to the Balkans has been to try and sway public opinion to rally behind Ukraine—a position that I agree with, for the record.
Such was the backdrop for the first-ever Balkan Disinformation Summit, which convened in Pristina and where I was invited to deliver the keynote address. Serbia and Russia have been in a continued information battle to undermine not only Kosovo, but other pro-U.S. and pro-E.U. forces in the region through disinformation and propaganda. The information wars aim to weaken support for NATO; vilify and demean the E.U. and U.S.; undermine democracy; and make authoritarianism attractive to the average citizen. The Russian and Serbian information machines propagate these messages through newspapers, radio, social media, television, houses of worship and in-person events. It has been remarkably effective.
Specific to Kosovo, disinformation campaigns aim to make Kosovo seem backward, unsafe, unstable and unworthy of being its own nation. That is ultimately what Serbia wants; the Serbian government wants Kosovo to be absorbed into Serbia similar to how the Russian government seeks to absorb Ukraine. My host told me that one of his colleagues in Serbia thought that Kosovo had no airport because disinformation inside Serbia insists that’s the case (Pristina does, in fact, have an airport. I walked through it twice). Ukrainian journalists taking refuge in Pristina told me that before coming to Kosovo, they thought the country was a war zone filled with rebel fighters because that was what Russian disinformation inside Ukraine told them. (I can confirm there are no wars or rebels in Pristina). And Serbian and Russian outlets repeat the false narrative that Ukraine invaded Russia, not the other way around.
The Balkan Disinformation Summit, organized by an independent media outlet called The GeoPost, brought together numerous organizations across the region fighting such disinformation. They included a media literacy team from North Macedonia, scholars from Montenegro, journalists from Albania and fact-checkers and cybersecurity experts from Kosovo. Some of them I’d met on my trip to the Balkans last year, or when they visited the U.S. through the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. All are working on shoe-string budgets, piecing together grant-funding from the U.S., United Kingdom or E.U. Meanwhile the Russian government spends between $1 billion and $4 billion annually on information warfare. It is not a fair fight.
My contribution was to offer insights from my book, History, Disrupted. Through my research, I’ve uncovered mechanisms within social media that help enable disinformation to spread widely across the Web. The hope is that such insights can help these organizations in their work, offering them useful tips on how to build resilience and information literacy into their populations, particularly among young people. On each of my missions, including this one, I have met with students, whether it was university students in Kosovo and Estonia, high school students in Latvia, or naval cadets in Bulgaria.
On this trip to Kosovo, I also had the solemn responsibility to introduce the film “20 Days in Mariupol” before its screening at the National Library of Kosovo. The attendees included U.S. Ambassador Hovenier, ministers from the Kosovo government, opposition leaders, NATO KFOR officers, journalists, diplomats and Ukrainian refugees. As I sat before the audience with the American flag beside me, it crystallized for me what we really do on these missions: we try to embody our values and virtues before the world, inspiring our allies that we will be there for them and that we will have their backs. We have not always lived up to those promises (see Iraq and Afghanistan as two recent examples), and we certainly have as many vices as we do virtues. But I truly believe, in some small way, that my presence can help to embody some of what we aspire our American values to be: a belief in democracy, the sanctity of human rights, trust in expertise, allyship in a tumultuous world, and a commitment to an accurate and honest understanding of history. My goal is to advance these values in some small way on each exchange, reinforcing to our allies, our diplomats and myself the type of world we need to be building.
Indeed, across Kosovo, I met new friends and colleagues striving for such a world. Some are American diplomats living far from home for years at a time in hopes of making a difference. Others are part of Balkan civil society, fighting to uphold democracy and human rights. There is a lot to be optimistic about: Kosovo has a thriving diaspora that sends remittances home; there is booming real estate and construction industry; there is a growing middle class; there is a tech sector; a large international presence; and Kosovars are remarkably resilient. They have survived war and emerged stronger on a path towards independence. The food in Kosovo is also outstanding; some of the best food I’ve eaten in Europe.
But there are major challenges, and they are all interconnected. If Russia succeeds in annexing Ukraine, that could embolden Serbia to try and annex Kosovo, and may spark another Balkan war. The Kosovo-Serbia question must be resolved in order for Kosovo to fully enter international organizations and lift more Kosovars out of poverty. Kosovo has 38% youth unemployment according to the U.N. It ranks 84th out of 180 for corruption and has a score of 60 out of 100 for freedom, making it “partly free” according to Freedom House.1 Corruption must be tackled, jobs must be created, green energy infrastructure must be built, pollution must be eliminated, and gender-based violence must be eradicated (one person told me how challenging it was to be woman in Kosovo, always being spoken down to and challenged by men). These are big fights for a small country; they cannot be waged alone.
Kosovo also has a large stray dog population, and amid the haze and quiet of the early mornings there was always a dog outside my hotel. Alone in the streets she would bark into the silence, perhaps defending her territory, perhaps calling out for help, or perhaps both. Towards the end of my stay I began to see her as a metaphor for the country: defending her territory, asking for assistance, and telling the world that she will not be overlooked. After all, as Mark Twain never said, it is not the size of the dog that counts, but the spirit with which she endures. While Kosovo may be small, in a short five days, her large spirit came through loud and clear.
Have a good week,
-JS
The Balkan Disinformation Summit was written up by several media outlets. Here are a few:
“What impact does disinformation have?” (Kosova Press)
“Disinformation and foreign influences in the Balkan region” (Voice of America)
You can also see highlights from the summit on the The GeoPost website here and here.
The first version of this article stated the Freedom House score for Kosovo as 56. That was the 2022 score. The 2023 and 2024 score improved to 60, still designated as “partly free.” The article has been updated with the more recent and accurate figure.
Learned a lot about a place about which I knew almost nothing. Your article made me care about it. Thanks.