Renowned French scholar Serge Métais has spoken about the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Dick Marty’s report, saying that manipulation by Russian intelligence services began almost immediately after Kosovo declared independence. According to Métais, the aim was to keep Europeans divided for a prolonged period over the recognition of Kosovo.
An excerpt from Métais’s interview with Epoka e Re, which will be published in full at a later date:
“The manipulation by Russian intelligence services began almost immediately after Kosovo declared independence. It was directed against Europeans, who at the time were deeply divided over recognising Kosovo’s independence. This manipulation appears to have been a precursor to the hybrid warfare that Putin’s Russia is waging against Europe today.
“Its aim was to keep Europeans divided for a long time over the recognition of Kosovo, by drafting a report bearing the official stamp of the Council of Europe and morally condemning the highest-ranking officials of the new state,” Métais said.
He added that, formally, the manipulation began in April 2008, just two months after Kosovo declared independence, when a Russian parliamentarian introduced a motion in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
“For Russian intelligence services, this Assembly provided an exceptional platform for launching some of their disinformation operations.”
Métais described Dick Marty as what is commonly referred to, in a phrase traditionally attributed to Lenin, as a “useful idiot.” He stressed the importance of understanding what the term means in this particular case.
But what exactly is a “useful idiot”?
MÉTAIS: “First, it must be clarified that a ‘useful idiot’ is not an ‘agent.’ An agent of Russian intelligence under Putin, just like an agent of Serbian intelligence under Milošević, is not a free person. They are under coercion. For various reasons, they have lost their freedom of action.
“They may have sworn to obey orders, as is the case with a professional agent. But that is not essential. They may simply have been coerced because these services possess various means of exerting pressure on them, forcing them to act under certain circumstances. They may have ways of making them ‘sing’—for example, by exposing compromising information about them.”
Further details will be published in a subsequent article.
Serge Métais (born in 1952) is a French economist, historian and publicist, as well as a former university lecturer. He is known for his research on communist systems in Eastern Europe, Albanian history and geopolitical developments across the post-Soviet region.
In 2006, the prestigious French publishing house Fayard published his major work, Histoire des Albanais. Des Illyriens à l’indépendance du Kosovo (History of the Albanians: From the Illyrians to Kosovo’s Independence).
