Unholy alliance: How Moscow turned to priests and bikers to topple Montenegro’s rulers after failing with guns

Recent elections in Montenegro saw the end of an autocrat but also the rise of Russian influence in the country, reports Borzou Daragahi

Metropolitan Amfilohije Radovic throws a wooden cross in a river Ribnica during Epiphany Day celebrations (REUTERS//File Photo) (REUTERS)

At last, Montenegro was about to turn a corner. A new law passed in the closing days of 2019 allowed the government to roll back some of the powers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, widely considered a pawn of Russia in the small Balkan state.  

But the church, which has dominated the country’s religious and cultural life for a century, struck back. Under the leadership of the 82-year-old Metropolitan Bishop Amfilohije Radović, it swung into action.  

It mobilised priests to denounce the law as blasphemous at pulpits throughout the mountainous nation of 630,000. It organised marches led by revered religious figures. It formed an entire political coalition to oppose the ruling party. It even joined forces with pro-Kremlin motorcycle gangs called the “Night Wolves”.  

“We won’t give up the holy places,” Alexander Zaldastanov, aka “the Surgeon,” leader of the biker gang, declared in a video in which he voiced support for the church-backed protests. “Russia is not a nation, but a state of mind.”

Senior Montenegrin officials accused Moscow of using the church to undermine the country, just as it had attempted a coup four years ago to prevent it from joining Nato in 2017.  

But it was to no avail. In the 30 August general elections, the church-led opposition brought down the pro-western the government of President Milo Djukanovic, an autocrat who had been in power for nearly 30 years. The winners, spread across a sprawling coalition that includes avowed pro-Moscow figures, are now forming a government likely more friendly to the Kremlin, with Djukanovic and his party agreeing to serve as the opposition.  

The failure of the religion law and the election result showed how the Kremlin has grown adept at using soft power as well as the hard power of its militias and mercenaries to achieve its aims. More than perhaps any other country, Montenegro demonstrates Russia’s increasingly flexible strategic patience, and adaptability.  

“Russian meddling or involvement or intervention into regional affairs is a very purposeful, strategic approach that defines goals in the long term instead of short term,” says Sinisa Vukovic, a scholar specialising in the Balkans at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. “Russia is doing exactly what the west was doing in the late 1980s and 1990s in Eastern Europe. It’s using its soft power to shape the narratives.”

Russia has long been pining to regain a foothold in the country. Alleged Kremlin operatives including two figures accused of working for Russian military intelligence plotted to stage a 2016 coup in an effort to prevent the country from joining Nato.  

Missteps by Djukanovic and his allies played into the Kremlin’s hands.

Bringing some measure of transparency to religious institutions was one of the requirements for tiny Montenegro to join the European Union. But the previous government in Montenegro clumsily tried to insert language into the new law that appeared to directly target the Serbian Orthodox Church, which swallowed up the local branch of the religion when the country was annexed into the Kingdom of Serbia more than a century ago.  

That move, along with general hostility to Djukanovic’s decades-long rule, created a perfect storm of nationalist grievance and perceived religious persecution to give the Kremlin an opening.  

“The Kremlin was trying to do it for a long period after the Montenegrin government officially decided to align with Nato,” says Ljubomir Filipović, a former Montenegrin politician based in the resort city of Budva. “The other stakeholders got into this game and created this perfect storm for the Kremlin’s agenda to materialise.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. and other western nations have remained mostly unengaged and complacent. “From the western perspective there is this assumption that certain types of thresholds and milestones once achieved cannot be undone,” says Vukovic. “But there is no reason to believe that a battle won is a war won.”

The original religion law was meant to allow the state to take back property owned by the powerful church if it could not prove that it had owned it before 1918, when Montenegro was made part of Serbia in a pan-Slavic federation.  

Russia is not a nation, but a state of mind.

Alexander Zaldastanov, aka ‘the Surgeon’, leader of the ‘Night Wolves’ biker gang

Over the last century, the church has become a powerful player in Montenegro. It owns monasteries and lucrative pilgrimage sites that draw visitors from across the Eastern Orthodox faith.  

It also oversees a broader network of commercial interests, including hotels, stakes in construction businesses and shopping centres. It pays little if anything in taxes and often operates in gray zones beyond regulatory oversight.  

“They are operating huge businesses in Montenegro,” Filipovic says. “Most of the money traffic is going under the counter. They mostly use cash for their day-to-day operations. They are not registered as a single legal entity. They operate as small islands.  They have this status of being above the law.”

The church also has been accused of defending Serbian war crimes during the 1990s armed conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, and sheltering alleged war criminals afterwards.  

Bishop Amfilohije himself, who recently tested positive for Covid-19, has been the most outspoken in promoting Kremlin talking points. He has likened Nato to “The Fourth Reich” and described it as a “a continuation of fascism.”

He and his surrogates have compared the tolerant attitudes toward homosexuality in the European Union to the Biblical tale of “Sodom and Gomorrah” and argued the Russia is the only true ally of ethnic Serbs, which make up a third of Montengrins.  

“He’s the most pro-Russian social figure,” says Vukovic.

During protests against the law, prominent pro-Kremlin figures including the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine visited to rally supporters. A network of pliant journalists in the rightwing press lauded the clergy and denounced the government.

The church-backed election victory will likely have major consequences for Montenegro. Its supporters say they will stick with the plan to push to join E.U., and have even committed to strengthening ties to Nato, as well as ferret out corruption.  

“If the election was one thing, it was an emphatic rejection of a discredited and corrupt regime,” writes London-based Montenegrin politician Duško Knežević.  

But among the new government’s stated priorities is to lift sanctions imposed on Russia over its annexation of parts of Ukraine. Within the winning coalition are hardcore pro-Russians linked to Moscow.  “There are people who are trying to take over the security apparatus who are directly under the control of the Kremlin,” says Filipovic.

Not all figures in the Serbian Orthodox Church adhere strictly to the same pro-Kremlin line. Young clergy based in Germany and other countries have sought to distance themselves from the alleged corruption and abuses of the institution.

Russia also has other tools to build up influence. It has considerable investment in Montenegro, though the EU remains a far more important trading partner. The Russian embassy has become a more active player in the local cultural and economic scene. “For the first time they started investing in scholarships for Montenegrin students,” says Filipovic.  

Russia even has something like an international development organisation, called Rossotrudnichestvo, though instead of rebuilding schools and hospitals it mostly promotes the Russian language, celebrates Russian war victories and is filled with current and aspiring Russian spies.  

But a 100-page report released 15 October by the Sofia-based Center for the Study of Democracy identified the eastern Orthodox church as “one of the Kremlin’s favourite soft power niches,” an instrument of power it has used in the Balkans, eastern Europe and Greece and Cyprus.  

“There’s a relapse into religion in the Balkans after the wars of the 1990s after the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia,” says Vukovic. “Religion is the lynchpin of national identity. That allows for the church to play a much more significant role.”