Conflict & war, explained.
Political paralysis has left Kosovo unable to pass laws, approve municipal budgets, or fund public services: Demonstrations during a May Day rally in Pristina (Armend Nimani/AFP via Getty Images)
Those proposing a Kosovo-style settlement for the Donbas are working from a 1999 blueprint – one that political dysfunction has since exposed.
Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
The Kosovo model won’t save UkraineThe Kosovo model won’t save Ukraine
Europe’s newest country seems to like having elections. On 7 June, Kosovo held parliamentary elections for the third time (Opens in new window) in 16 months and for the fifth time in seven years. And for the fifth consecutive time, the Lëvizja Vetëvendosje (Self-Determination Movement, LVV) topped the vote.
In every election since 2019, LVVhas garnered the most votes. But its support is now slipping. In December 2025, LVV won 51% of the vote and 57 of the 120 parliamentary seats. Provisional results (Opens in new window) for the June vote give the party about 43% of the vote, far from enough to control parliamentary business alone.
But perhaps the most telling fact of the June election is that most Kosovars could not be bothered to vote.
Not even 20 years after Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from repressive Serbia, democratic malaise has set in: in June, only 37% of registered voters cast ballots, a 10-point drop from the last elections and a historic low (Opens in new window).
While explanations (Opens in new window) for the poor turnout vary (Opens in new window), commentators seem to agree that Kosovo’s chronic political crisis is set to continue. In recent years, none of the three main political parties have shown much ability to cooperate, repeatedly (Opens in new window) failing (Opens in new window) to even elect a parliamentary speaker, let alone debate a substantive policy agenda. Caretaker governments have become the norm.
While some (Opens in new window) suggested (Opens in new window) the December 2025 elections would end the political crisis, the first half of 2026 saw continued deadlock in Kosovo. Domestically (Opens in new window), political paralysis has left Kosovo unable to pass laws, approve municipal budgets, or fund public services. Just as worryingly, the sidelining of parliament has enabled an indulgent political culture in which the state’s resources are questionably allocated, with little scrutiny or debate.
Take the remarks of LVV leader Albin Kurti, prime minister since 2021, who in response to critiques (Opens in new window) about subsidising diaspora air travel in advance of the June election, told (Opens in new window) reporters:
“We would act differently if we had an Assembly. Since we do not have an Assembly, we act with what we know and believe that we are doing very well.”
Internationally, Kosovo’s normalisation talks with Serbia – the Belgrade–Prishtina dialogue (Opens in new window) mediated by the European Union – have made scant progress (Opens in new window). The European Union has made clear (Opens in new window) that further European integration for both Kosovo and Serbia depends on normalisation taking place. At the same time, the LVV government has been (Opens in new window) criticised (Opens in new window) for its policies (Opens in new window) towards the country’s significant ethnic Serb minority, leading to the United States suspending (Opens in new window) its strategic dialogue with Kosovo; for his part, Kurti has rejected (Opens in new window) any characterisation of his government as ethnically intolerant.
A campaign billboard in the centre of Pristina featuring prime minister leader of Vetëvendosje, Albin Kurti (Aly Verjee)
Beyond its immediate dysfunction, though, what international relevance does Kosovo have today, nearly 30 years after NATO’s 1999 air campaign (Opens in new window) offered a formative test (Opens in new window) of the doctrine of the responsibility to protect? After all, political crisis in the Balkans is far from unique. An ever more (Opens in new window) illiberal Serbia has been rumbled by student-led protest (Opens in new window). Bosnia has its own internecine form of unending political crisis (Opens in new window). Albania, Kosovo’s nearest neighbour and most important ally, has also experienced democratic erosion (Opens in new window) and is in the throes of civil unrest (Opens in new window).
The broader international reason for needing to understand Kosovo today is not to be found in the Balkans: rather, it is Ukraine. In recent months, the “Kosovo model” has been proposed (Opens in new window) as (Opens in new window) a solution for future governance and control of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, much of which is currently occupied by Russia.
As part (Opens in new window) of his testimony (Opens in new window) before the United States Congress, Edward Joseph, a former senior OSCE official in Kosovo, argued that:
“the US can employ the Kosovo model … the White House can propose that Kyiv and Moscow accept a Kosovo-style interim arrangement on the Donbas and other … contested territory …[allowing] each side to preserve its ultimate territorial claims over the Donbas, while offering substantial, immediate benefits to both Kyiv and Moscow.”
Other elements of the model were elaborated in a recent Foreign Policy article (Opens in new window), which notes that after NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999, the territory “was emptied of Serbian and Kosovar Albanian militaries and placed under an interim UN administration with an international security force”. This postponement of the legal question of sovereignty, the article continued, “is the key to the relative peace that has prevailed there since”. Kosovars govern themselves in a system declared to be an independent state but recognised by neither Serbia nor Russia.
Importing the unresolved legacies of political settlements in the Balkans is unlikely to solve them.
Ukrainian commentators reject the comparison. Kosovo’s conflict was more akin to a civil war than an interstate conflict; Kosovo’s long oppressed Albanian minority in Yugoslavia sought self-determination, for which there is no comparable parallel in Ukraine. Russia seeks to annex Donbas; in 2008, Kosovo sought to formally separate itself (Opens in new window) from Serbia with a unilateral declaration of independence.
Joseph, for his part, asserts that Kosovo remains applicable as an analogy because of Vladimir Putin’s acceptance of the formula for Kosovo’s initial international administration, which has given the proposal continued currency.
What both Joseph’s proposal and critiques miss is how Kosovo has evolved since 1999. Ukraine has its own domestic challenges, certainly, and importing the unresolved legacies of political settlements in the Balkans is unlikely to solve them. While understanding how autonomy, reconciliation, and everyday governance have played out in Kosovo shows the limits of international interventions and the difficulties of designing durable post-conflict orders, models for peace are not easily replicated.
About the author
Aly Verjee
Aly Verjee has conducted extensive research on international intervention in Kosovo, Ukraine, and throughout Africa south of the Sahara.
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Thursday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
