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Democratic lawmakers in the United States, longtime observers of the Balkans, and Kurti himself say U.S. support for the vote of no confidence played an integral role in toppling the government, which had been in power for less than two months. Kurti was reportedly seen as an obstacle to efforts by the United States’ Serbia-Kosovo envoy, Richard Grenell, to score a foreign-policy victory for the Trump administration by brokering a deal between Serbia and Kosovo, which fought a war in the late 1990s. 

This specific official has this specific stance, which is identical to that of Belgrade. And this is a first. Never, in our 30-year relationship since 1989, has an American envoy to the Balkans had an identical stance with Belgrade.

We have a very weak president who is trying to be tough internally while counting his days in office. I think Ambassador Grenell is using the situation, utilizing the shortcut between Thaci and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic toward a certain agreement, to facilitate it and to crown it with a fiesta as a success in the international arena for himself and perhaps this administration. So he saw this potential for a quick deal, for a quick fix between the two presidents, and he doesn’t care very much about the contents [of the agreement].

the rules can leave people trapped in a country that they do not identify with and/or a government that abuses them. This was the justification for fudging the rules with Kosovo. Serbia did not agree to Kosovo independence. Yet, a referendum and a somewhat opaque advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice helped legitimize the secession.  Putin now claims that Kosovo set a precedent even though there is no comparable history of abuse in Crimea, and Russia has never recognized Kosovo. At the same time, the European Union and the United Staes are eager to argue that Kosovo did not set a precedent for other oppressed groups and that Kosovo is totally different from South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and so on. This is the kind of maddening but unavoidable inconsistency that led Stanford professor and former U.S. State Department director of policy planning Stephen Krasner to dub so-called principles of sovereignty “organized hypocrisy.”

Russia has always used buffer states as a way to shield it from the “West.” Putin clearly considers the break-up of the Soviet Union as recent territorial loss that ought to be rectified. And third, Russia is not (anymore) a liberal state, although it does have extensive trade and financial ties that may moderate its behavior.

territorial integrity principle is a terrific principle from the U.S. viewpoint (and from that of most states who value stability) but not necessarily from the perspective of Russia (and possibly China, although more on that some other time). Crimea’s annexation can thus be seen as a challenge to the principle itself and with that to the stability of the system as it is currently constructed