"Macedonia could be next Ukraine" - paper

Macedonia could become "a new arena for the clash between the West and Russia," a Moscow-based daily writes on Monday.
Source: Beta Monday, May 18, 2015 | 15:26

Anti-government protesters camp in front of the government HQ in Skopje (Tanjug)

The article stated that Macedonia is "on the verge of the most serious conflict" since the time of inter-ethnic strife in the early 2000s.

It adds that the mass opposition protest in Skopje on Sunday "has already been compared to protests in Kiev and referred to as 'the Macedonian Maidan'."

The Macedonian crisis has not erupted without reason, believes the daily, and notes that a decade ago that country was considered a regional leader in European integrations, while today it is "at the end of the queue for Europe, at the risk of losing its membership candidate status."

According to Kommersant, "the West seems seriously concerned about the events in Macedonia, while Moscow is monitoring the events increasingly carefully."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke in Belgrade last week to "effectively accuse the West of preparing a color revolution in Macedonia" - a country that has not joined anti-Russia sanctions.

On May 16, the article continued, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that "there is compelling evidence that Macedonia is being pushed from the outside into the ruin of a colored revolution."

In its statement, the ministry quoted the Belgrade-based daily Vecernje Novosti that reported about "the arrest of a citizen of Montenegro who helped Albanian extremists from Kosovo" - something that "the Montenegrin media have denied."