Gas Relief to Serbia and Bosnia During the Eastern European Gas War

Due to the Russian-Ukrainian-European gas war Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia were the first serious victims, having not enough energy to heat residential areas. With some delay, Hungary (and Germany) offered some relief for the Serbian plea. Austria joined in later, demonstrating that Serbia is closer to Central Europe than Russia. Another good news is that according the Serbian president started to talk with the Croatian premier to improve the situation in Croatia, where are also limitations on energy use. The two countries have been fighting a bloody war against each other 15 years ago.

The current, Czech Presidency, the first real Central European one, tries to capture the mood and give some more space for Serbia’s politicians to redirect their countries alliance from Russia to the European Union. At last, European gas shipment arrived to Bosnia-Herzegovina, too. In Sarajevo people were without heating for -17C. It was reported that in Kragujevac, a Serbian industrial town, where people have just recently spend about a half of their yearly salaries to switch to gas heating in the promise of Russian gas from the Slavic allies, people were protesting and burning Russian flags.

There area a lot of geopolitics and economic interests at stake in the yearly Ukrainian-Russian gas wars. It seems that the 2009 one has served some EU and Central European geopolitical interests.