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LEADING ARTICLE

Naming and Shaming

A key vote in Macedonia highlights Moscow’s risky game on Europe’s borders

The Times

Geopolitics has returned to the Balkans. Both Russia and the West had a stake in yesterday’s referendum in Macedonia, which was technically about the formal naming of the former Yugoslav republic. This was not, however, just an attempt to resolve an etymological dispute: it was about spheres of interest, the limits to Moscow’s influence on Europe’s borderlands, and the power of attraction of western institutions. Judging by early returns it seemed as if Vladimir Putin might have won on points: the turnout in the referendum failed to reach the 50 per cent needed to be valid.

The ballot was non-binding on the government but its significance quickly became clear when both Jim Mattis, the US secretary of defence, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, publicly