The Russian Minister of Emergencies, Sergei Shoigu, on a visit to Serbia & Montenegro on behalf of Russia?s President, announced after a meeting with the head of the Serbian government Voyislav Kostunica that the Ministry of Emergencies would proceed with the assembly of two tent camps for Serbian refugees, each with a capacity for one thousand persons.

Early on 24 March, two Ilyushin-76 planes lifted off from Moscow on their way to Belgrade carrying equipment for camps. They delivered tents, lighting equipment, mobile power stations, bedding, equipment for first-aid posts, and field kitchens. The humanitarian operation was carried out in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, which supplied the tents. In addition the planes delivered a field hospital capable of taking up to 600 patients per day.

At the very same time, Chechen refugees continued and continue to eke out an existence in Ingushetia, living in tent camps and tormented by cold in worn out and inadequate tents. They only have electricity and heating periodically, and have difficulty in obtaining even a minimum of medical care. The food available is not enough to support their families. The authorities and army drive them back to Chechnya, where living conditions are even worse, notwithstanding the wholesale absence of personal security in the war-torn republic. The Russian government considers these refugees Russian citizens, though these Chechens can hardly find any great delight in this fact.

One cannot say that Serbia is closer to Moscow than Ingushetia is: and the Chechen refugees have in no way suffered less at the hands of the Russian army than the Kosovo Serbs have at the hands of the Albanians. But pity for the Chechen refugees is felt neither by Minister Shoigu nor, more to the point, by the Minister of Defence Igor Ivanov. It is thus necessary to suppose that the treatment of Serbian refugees is not the galvanising factor in their generosity to the Kosovo Serbs: more the supply of humanitarian aid to Serbia is a last hope for their Balkan politics. Having suffered a political and military fiasco in the Balkans against the West, the Kremlin offers Serbia help in the hope of finding a way to influence the Balkan situation for its own ends.

Compassion is a worthy feeling. But it cannot be so selective. The Kremlin, as the learned ones in the parable of the Samaritan, carries on past those lying at the side of the road, hastening to be seen helping the Kosovo Serbs, who anyway are already being given assistance by the West. Therefore the current help to Serbia is not a humanitarian action but more a crafty political game disguised as humanitarian aid.

The comparisons do not end here. According to data from the Russian Ministry of Health, as of 25 March the state owed its health sector employees some 565 million roubles. The Russian state is disinterested towards its health sector employees like it is towards the Chechen refugees, and it prefers to spend its budget in the Balkans, farcically announcing to the world its generosity and magnanimity.