Garčević Publishes Op-Ed on Russia and Montenegro’s NATO Bid
Amb. Vesko Garčević, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Frederick S.Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed outlining the history of Russian interference in democratic processes outside of the United States, including an apparent coup attempt during Montenegro’s 2016 parliamentary elections.
Garčević’s Op-Ed, entitled “Russia, An Alleged Coup and Montenegro’s Bid for NATO Membership,” was published in The Conversation on March 21, 2017.
The Op-Ed also appeared in Newsweek on March 26, 2017.
From the text of the article:
Recently, British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed concern over Moscow’s apparent involvement in an attempted coup in my home country.
From 2010 to 2015, I was the ambassador to NATO from Montenegro, a young democracy in southeast Europe that is part of the former Yugoslavia. Montenegro was targeted by an apparent coup attempt during its last parliamentary election on Oct. 16, 2016. While Russia has denied involvement, details of the plot shared by a Serbian man arrested at the scene point to what The New York Times called “Russian efforts to sow mayhem.”
Montenegro’s chief special prosecutor has alleged the involvement of two Russian Military Intelligence Service (GRU) agents, Vladimir Popov and Eduard Shirokov. The GRU is the same organization sanctioned by the Obama administration for hacking the Democratic National Committee offices. Shirolov, who has also gone by the name Shishmakov, was posted as the assistant military attache at the Russian Embassy in Poland until 2014 – when Poland threw him out of the country for spying.
As some of the plotters later confessed, their goal was to overthrow Montenegro’s government, kill then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and put into power political groups that oppose Montenegro’s NATO membership. Russia is on the record as opposing that membership bid and promised “retaliatory actions.”
Despite Russian opposition, joining NATO is one of Montenegro’s major foreign policy goals. The overwhelming majority of NATO members, 26 states, have already ratified the country’s membership and the process seemed on track for completion at the next NATO summit in May of 2017.
You can read the entire Op-Ed here.
Prior to joining the Pardee School faculty, Amb. Garčević’s served as National Coordinator for NATO in Montenegro, where he managed inter-agency coordination and NATO public campaign promoting Montenegro’s membership to the organization. You can read more about him here.