Garcevic in NYT and McClatchy on Russian Election Meddling
Amb. Vesko Garcevic, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Frederick S.Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was recently quoted in several media outlets on his June 28, 2017 testimony before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Russian efforts to interfere in Montenegro’s 2016 election.
Garcevic’s testimony was quoted in a June 28, 2017 article in McClatchy DC entitled “Planned Coup in Montenegro Shows Russian Efforts to Hinder Elections, Senate Panel Hears.”
From the text of the article:
Former Montenegrin Ambassador Vesko Garcevic, now an international relations professor at Boston University, said the Russian active measures in the former part of Yugoslavia (which had historic ties to the Soviet Union) began as a reaction to a 2013 denial of a Russian “request” to moor warships at their Adriatic Sea ports.
Instead of remaining linked to Russia, the nation of about 700,000 was moving towards membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Garcevic explained that the denial angered Russia, and that, combined with the idea of Montenegro joining NATO, “brought Moscow to conclusion that only a change of the current government in Montenegro may enable Russia to make gains in the small Balkans state and secure its strategic interests in this part of the Adriatic Sea.”
The investigation into the matter included the use of intercepted phone conversations that led to a confession from Aleksandar Sindjelic, “a supposed founder of the pro-Russian organization in Serbia ‘The Serbian Wolves,’” Garcevic said. The Serbian Wolves have been reported fighting in the Southeastern Ukraine, the so-called Donbas area, as part of a Russian-backed effort to destabilize that nation. Police said Sindjelic used about $230,000 from Russia for weapons, uniforms, shields and other equipment for the attack on the Parliament.
Garcevic’s written testimony noted that a suspected “key plotter still at large” named Nemanja Ristic was photographed months after the failed coup “standing near Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.”
Garcevic’s testimony was also referenced in a June 28, 2017 article in the New York Times entitled “Experts Encourage More Public Awareness of Russian Meddling.”
Garcevic was also quoted in a June 28, 2017 article by Radio Free Europe entitled “Former Diplomats Warn That Russian Election Meddling Continues In Europe.”
Garcevic was also interviewed for a July 3, 2017 article by RFE – Crimea.Realii.
During his diplomatic career, Amb. Vesko Garcevic dealt with issues pertinent to European security and NATO for almost 14 years. In 2004, he was posted in Vienna to serve as Ambassador to Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He had been a Montenegro’s Ambassador to NATO from 2010 until 2014 and served as a Montenegro’s National Coordinator for NATO from 2015 until he joined the faculty at the Pardee School.