I remember the great hopes in the West for Kostunica. This was the Democrat who was the first to translate important documents of American democracy into Serbian.

Turned out he was a "nationalist" and a "hardliner."

Have you been listening?

I don't think you have.

Then again, apologies in the region are hard to come by. Never an apology for the death camps in Croatia in WW2. Never an apology for Operation Storm, and in fact, when war criminals were arrested from the other side, the UN has sought to protect them (just Google Carla Del Ponte and Ramush Haradinaj). This story is a lot more complicated than you make out. You say the Serbs wanted to screw around with people without acknowledging things like Rambouillet which were clear attempts to screw around with them, nor acknowledging that the only group in the ex-Yugo prevented from seeking their own nation-state (in the Krajina, in Bosnia, in Slavonia, and now in northern Kosovo) was the Serbs.

In fact however, the current Serbian government expressed its contrition over the events surrounding Srebrenica and Croatia (in fact IIRC so did Babic - of all people)... I know not of any similar apologies from Croatia for Krajina or indeed the Bosnian Muslims regarding the actions of people such as Oric...

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

As an addition to what others wrote, I note: all you ever hear from Serbia is how the Western MSM you read present it, with neat wrapping. People should learn to apply the same scepticism to reporting as on Iraq.

Russia's been using Serbia to cause trouble in the Balkans for a hundred years

<sigh> Russia/the Soviet Union has been a rival and thus concern for Western imperiums for two centuries, and is thus subject to negative propaganda ever since. A propaganda that shuts out serious analysis of Russian moves (not to mention a denouncement of similar imperial policies by Western imperiums -- Russia never invaded the Western Balkans, but Austria-Hungary and Nazi Germany did so, as did NATO). In the current case, you completely ignore the break of international law, and its direct consequences to Russia's domestic and just-next-to-the-border concerns on territorial integrity.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}