Fearing he'd never leave jail alive, it was only when Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic was ousted in 2001 that he was let go. What he found was a Kosovo free of Serb soldiers but stuck in a limbo he now likens to going from a “Serbian prison to an international hospital.” Now the strategically important nation, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, is at the center of a struggle for influence in the Balkans contested by Russia, the European Union, China and Turkey.