Trump is on the WRONG side of this war with Russia, and this is the most significant risk of taking us into World War III. You cannot deal with the Balkans as if it were any other place in the world. The region has experienced centuries of imperial domination, forced religious conversion, and forced assimilation. Because these groups lived side-by-side for so long, their grievances are almost exclusively against each other. A Serb’s historical trauma is often linked to a Croat or an Ottoman (Bosniak), and vice versa. There is a cyclical pattern of eternal vengeance in the Balkans. The violence of the 1940s was avenged in the 1990s, creating a seemingly endless cycle where each generation feels it must settle the score for the last.
Then there has been the political manipulation—the most critical factor in the modern era. The hatred was not a spontaneous outburst; it was carefully, deliberately, and ruthlessly manufactured by elites for political gain over time. Bandera of Ukraine launched his ethnic cleansing to terminate anyone without Ukrainian blood to forge their own country, which today are the Neonazis who still market and display Bandera’s image following his call for ruthless ethnic cleansing. His image dominated the Maidan Revolution of 2014.
In conclusion, the ethnic hatred in the Balkans is a tragic story of how deep historical fault lines, when combined with the modern political tool of nationalism and weaponized by unscrupulous leaders, can be exploded into catastrophic violence. It is a stark warning about the power of history and the danger of politicians who use ethnic identity as a weapon. The West is now supporting the followers of Adolf Hitler. The ethnic hatred of the Ukrainians toward Russians started the separation movement of the Donbas when they were killing Russian-speaking people in Odessa, and the West turned a blind eye because the victims were Russians.
Hellbound and Down 