On February 17, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. Four days later, Serbian protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, setting it ablaze as crowds cheered and chanted from the streets below.

While it would be easy to condemn the Serbs and applaud the Kosovars in the same breath, a closer look at history reveals a reality far more nuanced – and far more complex – than mainstream media headlines suggest.

Kosovo has been the center of Serbia’s cultural and religious identity since 1389, when Serbs defended their homeland, and the rest of Christianized Europe, against the invading Ottoman Turks in the Battle of Kosovo. The event marked the first in a 500-year history of Serbian-Christian persecution by the Muslim Turks—a grim history that, in Serbian minds, weighs heavily against the legitimacy of the ethnic Albanian’s claim on rights to the region. For the Serbian people, Kosovo’s independence is tantamount to internationally sanctioned theft of Serbia’s medieval heartland.

Despite their long-documented history of subjugation and suffering at the hands of the Muslims and, later, the Communists, Western governments and media outlets have overwhelmingly portrayed the Serbs as genocidal aggressors while casting the ethnic Albanians as victims of unhinged nationalism and religious prejudice.

To be sure, the Serbian government, under the reign of Slobodan Milosevic, carried out repressive campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” against ethnic-Albanian separatists in the late nineties. In response, the U.S. led a NATO bombing campaign in Serbia to halt Milosevic’s offensive. The action allowed 700,000 ethnic Albanians to return to the area where, under the leadership of the Kosovo Liberation Army, ethnic Albanians launched their own “revenge ethnic cleansing campaign” against Serbs in the city of Pristina.

This storied, muddied history, one into which the U.S. insinuated itself a mere decade ago, demands a more measured approach on the part of western nations. Applauding Kosovo’s independence, which Orthodox-Christian Russia alleges to be illegal, sets a dangerous precedent for European states similarly struggling with separatist movements. Moreover, it does injustice to the epic Serbian struggle for freedom that deserves international recognition as well.