Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, President. It's an honour to have you appear before the committee today. It's a special honour for many residents of Etobicoke, because I know they're watching this televised proceeding.
We have many Kosovar Etobians. They're proud Canadians. They're also very proud of their ancestral roots and very proud of how far Kosovo has come since independence. However, notwithstanding all the progress, they're also worried that war and conflict could once again be visited upon the people of Kosovo.
I noted that the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies publishes occasional research papers on serious security threats. Just last month they published such a paper, entitled “Russian Interference in Kosovo: How and Why?” The first line of the executive summary reads as follows:
Kosovo is exposed to a genuine and formidable Russian meddling campaign against [its] Western state-building model and its democratic values, in particular since 2008. Numerous subversive and non-military instruments...continue to be used against a multiethnic Kosovo in order to create a pretext for a failed-state and heighten local separatism with[in] the Kosovo Serb community in northern municipalities.
I'd like to zero in on the “subversive and non-military instruments” that Russia appears to be using in Kosovo.
You've referenced the threat in neighbouring states, like Montenegro. In the 21st century, it's mind-boggling that a prime minister of a European country would be the potential victim of an assassination attempt by Russian special services, which has now been well documented, for his pro-NATO stance. However, in the Balkans and especially in Kosovo, it appears that Russia is using particular tools in their special ops kits, tools that we are not necessarily familiar with in the west that would be counterintuitive.
The report mentions the “construction of the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in the city of Nis”, which is “less than 100 km from Prishtina.” Notwithstanding the name, it actually appears to be an outpost for the Russian military and Russian intelligence, so you have that particular tool in the tool kit.
Something that we don't quite understand that well, because we have long-established traditions of the separation of church and state, is that it appears that the Russian Orthodox Church is often used as an arm of the special operations, as part of some of the geopolitical games that are being played. In the Balkans in particular, we see the use of the Serbian Orthodox Church as a tool in these games.
I note that Russia used UNESCO to provide significant funding to Serbian monasteries in Kosovo. As well, they provide monks to go there. The suspicions are that these people aren't really monks, nor are they serving spiritual needs. At the same time, they've blocked Kosovo's attempts to join UNESCO.
Perhaps you could expand on some of this, because it's something that we don't encounter in the west. It runs counter to our political culture.