A Serbian diplomat said that the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin cited a UN court ruling on Kosovo as justification for Moscow’s recognition of two breakaway areas of Ukraine means that he actually recognizes Kosovo as independent.

Srecko Djukic, Serbia’s former Ambassador in Belarus, recalled Putin’s statement at Tuesday’s meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk had the same right to declare independence as Kosovo based on the precedent set by the International Court of Justice ruling.

The Russian Tass news agency reported that Putin told Guterres that “the decision of the UN International Court of Justice on Kosovo, that in exercising the right to self-determination, the territory of a state is not obliged to apply for permission to declare its sovereignty to the country’s central authorities”.

“Putin actually said that he recognizes the independence of Kosovo and everything that Kosovo did with its sponsors,” Djukic told the Beta news agency. According to him, a precedent is recognized as part of international law “and we should add that the Russian side invoked the Kosovo precedent in 2008 when South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared independence and were recognized by Moscow”.

“Moscow has taken what is probably the deciding step in recognizing Kosovo and certainly making it easier for Washington and the West to resolve it,” Djukic said, adding that official Belgrade blindly stuck to the policy of sitting on two or three chairs which turned into an “ostrich” policy.