title: Dimitar Bechev, Rival Power: Russia’s Influence in Southeast Europe. New Haven, CT &amp;amp; London: Yale University Press, 2017.
abstract: Russia started following a more assertive foreign policy in the Balkans after the Ukraine crisis and the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Moscow tries to generate disruption in the region to keep the West preoccupied and divert it from its immediate neighborhood. In its strategy Russia relies on &amp;quot;hybrid warfare&amp;quot; as a strategy by actively using Slavophil groups, influencing media and social networks, cyber-attacks, and planting conspiracy theories against the Western paradigm. But,