Russia accused “western organizers” on Saturday of trying to foment a “color revolution” in the troubled former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, where political tensions are building ahead of an opposition rally on Sunday.
In a statement on the Macedonian crisis, Russia’s foreign ministry cited Serbian media reports about the arrest of a citizen of Montenegro accused of helping what Moscow called “Albanian extremists” operating in Macedonia, World Bulletin wrote.
“(This is) convincing evidence ... of attempts to push the country into the abyss of color revolution,” it said. “This is also evidence that western organizers of such catastrophic scenarios prefer to realize them with the hands of others,” the ministry said, drawing a parallel with Ukraine.
“Color revolution” is a term often used to describe popular uprisings in the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, where Moscow also accuses the West of deliberately meddling in local politics to further its interests.
The small Balkan state is also reeling from a bloody gun battle last weekend during a police raid on an ethnic Albanian neighborhood of northern Macedonia that left 18 people dead.
Moscow also accuses the West of helping to engineer the overthrow of Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovich after mass street protests in early 2014. He then fled to Russia.
