Macedonia is Told: Switch Loyalty to Russia or Suffer

Macedonia came under direct pressure last month from Russian officials to detach itself from the West or “face reprisals”, The Sunday Times can reveal.

In a sign of the Kremlin’s growing ambitions in the Balkans, members of the Macedonian government were presented with demands by the Russian ambassador to shift their allegiance to Moscow.

The intervention came amid a political crisis that culminated about a fortnight later in the storming of the Macedonian parliament.

“Russia does not need Macedonia”, but Macedonia cannot “survive without Russia”, the ambassador, Oleg Shcherbak, reportedly said.

Moscow has publicly defended the 11-year rule of the conservative VMRO party, which has been refusing to hand over power to an opposition-led coalition that narrowly won parliamentary elections in December.

Source: The Times