{"id":459,"date":"2025-04-10T07:46:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T07:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/?p=459"},"modified":"2025-04-10T07:49:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T07:49:41","slug":"politico-putin-wants-western-balkans-as-his-next-playground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/?p=459","title":{"rendered":"Politico: &#8220;Putin wants Western Balkans as his next \u2018playground'&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">April 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Putin wants Western Balkans as his next \u2018playground,\u2019 UK warns<br>Tensions are rising in the Western Balkans, Europe\u2019s \u2018other hotspot.\u2019 Britain\u2019s foreign affairs chief David Lammy sees the \u2018long hand of Russian interference.\u2019, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Europe\u2019s attention has been focused on Ukraine, tensions in the Western Balkans have been simmering, and leaders in the region \u2014 as well as in Britain \u2014 worry Russian President Vladimir Putin will use the moment to further<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>exploit fault lines in the former Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Western Balkans are described as \u201cthe\u00a0<em>other<\/em>\u00a0hotspot\u201d by figures in the upper echelons of the U.K. government \u2014 and with the heat now being turned up, Britain is pushing for all six states in the region to join the EU to ward off Russian influence. Read more in the Politico article from 9 April 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/with-all-eyes-on-ukraine-europe-is-urged-not-to-forget-the-other-hotspot\/\">here<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April 2025 Putin wants Western Balkans as his next \u2018playground,\u2019 UK warnsTensions are rising in the Western Balkans, Europe\u2019s \u2018other hotspot.\u2019 Britain\u2019s foreign affairs chief David Lammy sees the \u2018long hand of Russian interference.\u2019, While Europe\u2019s attention has been focused on Ukraine, tensions in the Western Balkans have been simmering, and leaders in the region [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[55,42,54,22],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eu-enlargement-highlights","tag-eu","tag-russia","tag-uk","tag-western-balkans","entry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"ocean-thumb-m":false,"ocean-thumb-ml":false,"ocean-thumb-l":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"TNM_M","author_link":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"April 2025 Putin wants Western Balkans as his next \u2018playground,\u2019 UK warnsTensions are rising in the Western Balkans, Europe\u2019s \u2018other hotspot.\u2019 Britain\u2019s foreign affairs chief David Lammy sees the \u2018long hand of Russian interference.\u2019, While Europe\u2019s attention has been focused on Ukraine, tensions in the Western Balkans have been simmering, and leaders in the region&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenextmile.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}