Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Ivica Dacic proposed a new plan for the settlement of the Kosovo crisis. In a lengthy article published in the Belgrade newspaper Novosti, the head of the Serbian foreign ministry actually recognized the complete defeat in the fight against the non-recognition of Kosovo's independence. In exchange for this recognition, the Serbian politician proposes Pristina to transfer Belgrade-inhabited Serb lands to the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, and for the remaining Serbs in the country to create broad autonomy and grant de facto independence to Orthodox monasteries located on Kosovo territory, following the example of the monastic state on Mount Athos. It is clear that such initiatives in Pristina will be perceived not only as an attempt on the territorial integrity of Kosovo. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kosovo, Enver Hojai, called his country "a multinational democracy with internationally recognized borders" and called the ideas on changing borders "dangerous and unacceptable". However, this is only the beginning of the discussion. The most important thing in Dacic's proposals is the readiness to recognize the accomplished fact of the change of the state borders of Serbia. In 1975, after the signing of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference, the borders on the European continent were finally fixed. In fact, they have remained so for several decades. Even when the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia took place, the division took place along the borders of the union republics - that is, on the borders of formally proclaimed states, united in federative or confederal-type unions. In the legitimacy of such a formulation of the issue, the presence of the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR in the United Nations, along with the "real" states, convinced the USSR state leadership of its Union republics. This unshakable rule has been broken only several times since 1975. This is the independence of Kosovo - until the proclamation of the sovereignty of the autonomous province as part of Serbia. This is the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - autonomies within Georgia. The independence of Transnistria - prior to the proclamation of sovereignty, these were the usual areas of the Republic of Moldova. Independence of Nagorno-Karabakh - an autonomous region within Azerbaijan. This is the "people's republics" of Ukrainian Donbas occupied by Moscow. And, finally, the most blatant is the annexation of the Crimea, when the autonomy, which was part of Ukraine with the help of military force, was included in the structure of another state, Russia. Of all these cases, only one - Kosovo's independence - was initiated by the West and passed the examination of the International Court of Justice. But at the same time there are many states that do not recognize Kosovo's sovereignty and consider it a dangerous precedent for the future world order. Among these states, not only Serbia. And not only Russia and its satellites. But also such European democracies as, for example, Spain or Ukraine - each, of course, for their own reasons. So, if the Serbian plan to resolve the situation with Kosovo in one form or another earns, it will be the most serious precedent in terms of changing approaches to international law. At one time, it was the proclamation of Kosovo's independence that enabled the Kremlin, albeit skilfully, to refer to this precedent for recognizing the "independence" of the Georgian autonomies. And the settlement of the situation around Kosovo can allow to agree with the very possibility of changing the state borders from the point of view of the logic of the fait accompli. It will take only the negotiation process - but its result will not be the very fact of the return of the territory to the country from which it was taken, but a compromise.

Simply put, if Serbia recognizes that Kosovo is no longer Serbian, then the next day it may turn out that Abkhazia is no longer Georgian, the Crimea and Donbass are no longer Ukrainian, Transnistria is no longer Moldovan, and so on. The formula of territorial integrity will be replaced by a formula of mutual consent - which will open the way for the permanent redistribution of borders with the subsequent recognition of this redistribution by the international community. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, it seems, does not really understand what Pandora's box he decided to open. Original.