US action in Venezuela sends mixed signals to Western BalkansThe Ibar bridge in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, a symbol of the division between its Albanian majority and Serb minority.
By Clare Nuttall in Glasgow January 5, 2026
The US military operation that toppled Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro has been warmly welcomed by Washington’s closest allies in the Western Balkans, but it has also revived uneasy questions across the region about international law, borders and whether great powers are once again setting dangerous precedents that could echo closer to home.
While Kosovo and Albania, both close allies of the US, hailed US President Donald Trump’s decision to use force against what Washington calls a “narco-terrorist regime”, other Balkan governments have remained notably cautious.
US forces launched air strikes on Caracas over the weekend and captured Maduro and his wife, accusing the Venezuelan leader of running a drug-trafficking network targeting the United States, an allegation he has denied.
The operation drew swift condemnation from France, Spain, Brazil, Russia, China and the European Commission, all of which said Washington had breached international law, and there were calls for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council.
In the Western Balkans, however, Albania’s Foreign Minister Elisa Spiropali wrote in an X post that Tirana “unequivocally stands with the United States and @POTUS in their decisive actions against Venezuela’s narco-terrorist regime”.
“As a steadfast U.S. ally and NATO member, Albania stands shoulder to shoulder with American leadership in the defense of democratic principles and global security,” she added.
Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani was equally emphatic. “President Trump stood with the people of Venezuela and stood up to Maduro’s narco-state — protecting America and the rest of the world from cartels and organized crime. This is what strength and American leadership look like,” she wrote on X.
The strong backing from Pristina and Tirana reflects their close ties to Washington. Kosovo, whose independence from Serbia followed Nato’s 1999 intervention led by the United States, still sees Washington as its ultimate security guarantor.
Law, borders and bad precedents
The criticism levelled at Washington – that it broke international law by using force to seize a foreign head of state – has struck a nerve in a region where unresolved borders and frozen conflicts remain a constant risk: if the rules of international order are bent in one part of the world, they could unravel in another.
In the past, Moscow has used Western recognition of Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, to justify backing separatists in countries such as Georgia.
The action in Venezuela follows ongoing US-led efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, which some analysts fear could legitimise Moscow’s territorial gains and weaken the principle that borders cannot be changed by force.
Those fears were set out in a December 2024 recent report from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which warned that a US-brokered Ukraine peace deal that rewards Russia with territory would have far-reaching consequences for the Western Balkans.
“A Russia-Ukraine peace deal that capitulates to Putin risks destabilising the Western Balkans, emboldening Serbian territorial claims and undermining EU credibility,” said the report, written by ECFR senior policy fellow Engjellushe Morina.
She argued that the outcome in Ukraine is a test case for how borders are treated across Europe. “America’s dismissal of international and customary law could trigger myriad unwanted repercussions for Europe’s eastern neighbourhood—in fragile states such as Georgia and Moldova, and in places where open political disputes still exist such as the Western Balkans,” she wrote.
“Any settlement that legitimises Russia’s use of force to alter its borders would further destabilise Ukraine and have negative repercussions in the Western Balkans,” the paper added.
The Venezuelan episode adds to that anxiety: if Washington is seen to disregard international rules when it suits its interests, what message does that send to leaders elsewhere who may harbour territorial ambitions?
Countries still in the balance
Those stakes are clear in northern Kosovo, a Serb-majority area that has long been a flashpoint between Belgrade and Pristina. The European Union is trying to broker a normalisation of relations between the two, but progress has been slow and the area remains volatile, as shown by a deadly Serb paramilitary attack in the village of Banjska in September 2023.
Morina warned in the paper that if global norms are weakened, Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, could be tempted to test the limits. “If Russia “wins” in Ukraine, the Western Balkans will be in trouble. If Russia gains additional territory, Serbia may be emboldened to urge members of the international community that recognise northern Kosovo as part of Kosovo to instead view it as part of Serbia. Its strongman leader Aleksander Vucic might also push for Bosnia’s Republika Srpska region to become part of Serbia,” the ECFR report said.
Bosnia & Herzegovina offers another example of how quickly things can shift when external powers change tack. The country endured a turbulent 2025 as Republika Srpska, its Serb-dominated entity, challenged the authority of the central state, including over the judiciary and law enforcement. Republika Srpska’s then president Milorad Dodik temporarily defied a ruling removing him from office, creating a volatile political situation.
In a sign of Washington’s evolving, more transactional approach, the Trump administration later lifted US sanctions on Dodik and his associates, saying the reversal of the separatist laws followed US-led efforts to defuse the crisis.
With US diplomacy active both in Ukraine and now dramatically in Venezuela, there are fresh questions over whether the rules of the game are being rewritten, and what that might mean for the Western Balkans.
