Book excerpt: Russia and the Balkans analyses Russia's policy from the death of communist Yugoslavia through the conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia, to the 'war on terror' and disputes over the status of Kosovo in the mid-2000s. It reveals that policy on the Balkans under Yeltsin and Putin was a matter of deep controversy in the Russian political elite, media, and academia, and was a prominent feature in the fierce disputes which raged over the orientation of foreign policy after the break-up of the Soviet Union.