If Belgrade and Pristina cannot come to an agreement, others will negotiate on their behalf - as in Yalta

The founder of rationalism in philosophy, the Frenchman René Descartes, believed that it was reasonable not to fully trust the one who deceived us at least once. Nevertheless, the Russian writer Anton Chekhov claimed that "you must have trust in people, otherwise life becomes impossible".

Indeed, it is impossible to build any functional relationship or feel any satisfaction without trust in the people with whom one works or maintains contact. Many would say that politics is something else and that only the naive can trust their rivals. Politics, however, is precisely because of this the area where questions of trust have the most delicate content and the most long-lasting importance, and dishonesty costs a lot.

Every week or every weekend there is a new dispute and a new escalation in Kosovo. The European representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, calls it "weekly management of the Kosovo crisis". This time, it is about the appointment of a Serbian minister in the Kosovo government, which the European Union says is "disappointing" and against the Kosovo Constitution.

This is what the former heads of the Kosovo Constitutional Court say. The European Union is facing a new challenge for which there is no solution in sight. Moreover, all this shows that, by all accounts, there are no conditions for a real dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade. This week, one of the most prominent public intellectuals from Kosovo, Veton Surroi, was in Belgrade, who said that the EU conducts an 'intellectually ill-prepared dialogue'.

Although many expect that, after numerous individual interventions that corrected Pristina's decisions, America will be the one to formally take the lead in the negotiations, the response from Washington is different. In addition, it seems that Washington has different points of view, one of the current administration, and the other "opposite" belonging to Trump and maybe Republican one.

The one now valid was presented by the American special envoy Gabriel Escobar. He has consistently stated that the dialogue should be conducted under the auspices of the EU, and when asked if the US would take the lead in that process, Escobar said: "I don't believe it. Because right now, if you look at the history of our engagement over the past two years, working with EU, through their mediation, we managed to solve many crises and we managed to prevent violence in the region in the past 18 months".

Former Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell sees it completely differently. He assessed that the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina are "falling apart" and that it is necessary for "American leaders to lead them", but he also emphasizes the need for both sides to "have confidence". The disappointing evidence that undermines the idea of trust came from the most unexpected side.

On the anniversary of the departure of the German chancellor, the leading German weekly newspapers published an extensive interview with Angela Merkel. In an interview with "Der Spiegel", it was stated that Merkel "believes" that the negotiations in Minsk were "buying time" that Ukraine could use to better prepare for a Russian attack.

Merkel was quoted as saying that Ukraine is now a "strong and well-protected country", unlike in previous years, when it would be "overwhelmed by Russian troops". Although these sentences were given in indirect speech, and were not quoted as some other parts of the extensive interview, it was enough to enrage the Russian media.

They recalled that in February 2015, it was Merkel who convinced Putin to sign the Minsk-2 agreement and who insisted that Kyiv be given a chance and reach an agreement. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko admitted a few months ago that the goal of signing the agreement was just to buy time for the Ukrainian army to transform into an army according to NATO standards.

Perhaps Merkel wanted to justify herself in front of the domestic public, since she was continuously accused of leniency towards Putin and determination in the construction and use of "Nord Stream 2". However, to the general disappointment, she only revealed that she too could not be trusted, even though she has been considered a reliable and stable European pillar for years. If you can't even trust Merkel, how can you trust others?

The Russian media angrily stated that it was not difficult for Merkel to look successful next to Sarkozy and other politicians of her era, but if she were to compare herself to her predecessors - chancellors like Kohl or Schroeder, then she would look "loser, short-sighted and completely unsuccessful".

Russian President Putin also spoke and admitted that everything should have ended in 2015 and that he should not have accepted Western persuasion, thus making it clear that Russia would no longer simply believe Western proposals.

As it now seems, French President Macron took them with him. This week Macron made his first visit to Washington since Biden became its leader. The French president announced that he would soon talk by phone with Putin about various topics, but the most important among them was "the new European security architecture". In this framework, there will be talks about the expansion of NATO towards the Russian borders, the deployment of weapons that Russia perceives as a threat and the provision of security guarantees to Russia, in order to start negotiations on the establishment of peace in Ukraine and the protection of the members of the Alliance and its allies.

After all, it is clear that Russia will want more than a signed paper full of promises, which no one wants to fulfill.

All of this is more important and dramatic if you take into account what is happening in Ukraine, that tens of thousands of people are left without electricity and heating every day in winter and snow. In the controversy that is still going on regarding the remarks about the inhumanity of such treatment and the destruction of energy, an analogy was reached with the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999 and the explanations of NATO officials as to why the energy infrastructure is being destroyed.

Such was the press conference of the then NATO spokesman, Jamie Shea, held on May 25, 1999. To a remark from the audience: "If you say that the (Yugoslav) army has a lot of generators, then why are you denying 70 percent of the country not only electricity, but also water, because, according to you, NATO targets only military targets," the NATO spokesman replied: "Unfortunately, command and control systems also depend on electricity. If Milosevic really wants his citizens to have water and electricity, all he has to do is to accept NATO's terms and we will stop this operation. Until he does, we will continue to attack the targets that supply his army with electricity. If it has consequences for the population, it is their problem."

Then he added: "Water and electricity are being used against the people of Serbia, we 'turned them off' forever or for a long time for the sake of the lives of 1.6 million Kosovars who were driven from their homes and whose lives were seriously threatened. Not everyone will like it, but for me this difference is fundamental".

"Now change Milosevic to Zelenskiy, and the Kosovars to Donetsk and Luhansk, and you will get the formula for the current form of coercion for the Kiev junta to accept Moscow's conditions," Russian media write, concluding that the experience was taken from the case of Yugoslavia and that it "works effectively."

Unfortunately, we cannot be in any way happy about such comparisons. Unlike Russia, which is waging a large-scale war to protect some of its interests, regardless of what price the civilian population will pay, and thus is able to provide the guarantees it seeks, for Serbia the question arises as to who can and what kind of guarantees provide in case of any agreement?

Between the "reasonable mistrust" and avoiding the "impossible life" mentioned by Chekhov, there is also the announced readiness of the European Union to provide Serbia with "quick entry into the EU and probably significant economic benefits" in the future, as stated in the Franco-German proposal on Kosovo.

After the French president's visit to Washington and his statements about the "new European security architecture" that he will discuss with the Russian president, one could assume that the Balkans and Kosovo will be included in the broader context of European security.

This would not be good news for Pristina and Belgrade, because if they cannot come to an agreement, then someone else will negotiate on their behalf, like in Yalta or Tehran. And maybe then there won't be any incentives for either side. Another thing is whether there are circumstances and personalities today who can reproduce the Yalta agreements, how sincere are they in their thoughts and their decisions, if even Angela Merkel admits that she had something else in mind when concluding the agreement? Ukraine is an example of what the principle of political ambiguity leads to in international relations and when the parties in negotiations mask their true intentions.

Written by: Dragan Bisenic, journalist