Russian Response To Anti-Russian Policy of Montenegro

According to Russian media, the number of Russian citizens vacationing in Montenegro may be drastically reduced next summer. The reason being an openly hostile policy of the Montenegrin Government towards Russia. As Glazyev sees it, Montenegro’s anti-Russian policy is inevitably motivating Russia to redirect its citizens to Crimea, to the Black Sea resorts with very comparable infrastructure. A significant decrease in frequency of charter flights from Russia to Montenegro is expected to result in more Russians choosing Crimea over the Montenegrin seaside. According to the the newspaper report, the Russians have been quietly ousted from Montenegro over the last few years. Big companies were confiscated, as well as Russian enterprises and businesses, such as the Podgorica Aluminum Plant (Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica – KAP) and several hotels. This past April, the Government of Montenegro supported the EU and US sanctions against Russia and did not support Russia’s UN resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism. The very last straw was the appearance of advertising posters with explicit anti-Russian content in Podgorica, the media reported, citing the ironic fact that: while the Montenegrin Government pursues an openly anti-Russian foreign policy, the country lives off tourism income stemming from Russia, which accounts for almost a third of the budget revenue. Last year, Montenegro was visited by approximately 300,000 Russian tourists who, according to the most modest of estimates, pumped at least a half billion euros into the Montenegrin budget, Blic reported.

  Source: InSerbia News