Russia is learning from its mistakes in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned. And it will continue to destabilise the situation if it is allowed to survive politically in this war.
In this case, Russia will use a different tactic: it will influence those countries where it can immediately succeed. These are mostly smaller countries, the president said at a briefing after the Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit in Albania.
"That is why, I am sure, the Baltic states, Moldova, and the Balkan states are under threat. The Soviet Union was present everywhere," he said.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, for his part, added that for Putin, the attack on Ukraine is not only about Ukraine, it is an attack on the rules of the world order, on the democratic community.
He added that the threat from Russia is not that its army will come to the Western Balkans, but that Putin is undermining the rules-based world order.