IT is a reasonable bet that Donald Trump knew next to nothing about the tiny Balkans country of Montenegro before his recent meeting in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin.

That Mr Trump in a subsequent television interview lambasted Montenegro claiming that Montenegrins were “very aggressive”, while ludicrously suggesting its recent membership of Nato might trigger World War III, only convinced observers that this was Mr Trump speaking on Mr Putin’s behalf.

Most likely such notions were planted in the US President’s mind during that one-to-one session in Helsinki with his Russian counterpart. It’s long been no secret that Moscow by hook or by crook did all it could to prevent Montenegro becoming the latest Nato member, even though the little Balkan nation finally succeeded in doing so last year much to the Kremlin’s chagrin.

Working therefore on the basis that Mr Putin has had remarkable success in inducing Mr Trump to promote the Kremlin’s interests and parrot its agenda, it’s probably fair to expect another small Balkan country to become the subject of both men’s ire in the coming months.

I’m talking of course about Macedonia, or to give it its proper name as known at the United Nations, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Fyrom).

Names matter here, indeed in “Macedonia’s” case what the country is actually called is already impacting on its future political direction of travel and will almost certainly bring it opprobrium from the Kremlin and therefore de-facto Mr Trump.

But before looking at such a prospect, it’s first necessary to rewind back to where the contentious issue of Macedonia’s name comes from and an agreement it signed last month with Greece.

It was in 1991 in the wake of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia that Greece’s northern neighbour called itself Macedonia.

For its part Greece was none to pleased and objected to the name, fearing territorial claims and ambitions on its eponymous northern region that includes the country’s second city, Thessaloniki.

The fledging Macedonia did little to defuse Greek anger with among other gestures calling its main airport in its capital Skopje after Ancient Greek hero Alexander. All this though is itself now history, given that after years of bickering, protests and talks the two neighbours have now reached an agreement.

Under the deal, signed on June 17, Macedonia agreed to change its name to Republic of North Macedonia. In return Greece has agreed to end its long-standing blockade of Macedonia’s membership of Nato and the EU.

As so often happens in the Balkans though, not everything is that straightforward.

For starters if the deal is to be fully implemented, then Macedonians must show their support in a referendum and likewise the Greek parliament must be on side.

For the moment it’s the first of these domestic political hurdles that is proving the trickiest.

For just as Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his ruling social democrats (SDSM) pushes hard for the renaming referendum to take place in the Autumn, so one of two main opposition groups in the country, the VMRO-DPMNE party has pushed back. Its supporters see the deal as little more than a shameful capitulation to Athens, something Mr Zaev has condemned as backward looking.

“Instead of boarding the train bound for the EU and Nato, he chose to stay on the dark side of history,” Mr Zaev was recently quoted as saying of opposition leader Hristijan Mickovski’s reluctance to move forward with the renaming vote.

Despite the obvious acrimony between the two sides, many remain confident the name change ballot will still take place, opening the way for the new Republic of North Macedonia to become part of the Nato and EU fold.

Should things move in this direction then cue Mr Putin’s full efforts to thwart Macedonia’s Nato aspirations in much the same way he did in Montenegro. That much was already evident last month when according to authorities in Athens, Russia tried to pay off Greek clerics and officials to oppose the Macedonia-Greece deal.

The meddling prompted the Greek government of prime minister Alexis Tsipras this month to expel two Russian diplomats and deny entry to two others, while accusing the Kremlin of “constant disrespect for Greece”.

It was an extraordinary move by the normally Russophilic Greek government that has been one of Russia’s best European friends.

Moscow in turn responded by cancelling a planned visit to Athens by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and the two countries continue to trade angry statements.

In Macedonia itself, meanwhile, evidence suggests that Russia’s GRU military spy service is already using the sensitive mood in the country to stir up nationalist and anti-Western resentment, and so hindering Macedonia’s referendum route to Nato.

A few weeks ago Macedonia interior ministry documents seen by the local partner of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reportedly revealed one key source of payments to opponents of the renaming referendum.

According to the group’s investigative journalists, Ivan Savvidi, a Russian billionaire living in Greece who was formerly a member of the Russian parliament and United Russia party, made payments worth at least ¤300,000 to recently created radical nationalist organisations willing to foment unrest in the country. A similar Russian role was also uncovered in neighbouring Greece.

Intelligence service watchers say that what has been unfolding in Macedonia is almost a carbon copy of what happened in Montenegro, though in the latter, Russian intelligence operatives were also involved in plotting a violent coup that would have ended in the assassination of Montenegro’s pro-Western leader, Milo Djukanovic.

Much of course might still happen that could derail Macedonia’s renaming referendum and accession to Nato and EU membership.

If one thing is certain though, it’s that undaunted by his failure in Montenegro, Mr Putin is again pulling out the stops and sending forth the spooks and dirty tricks brigade to make things difficult in a country Russia insists as being within its sphere of influence.

It would come as no surprise too if all of a sudden, Mr Trump again suddenly discovers yet another small Balkan country on the map called Macedonia and joins the Kremlin’s chorus of mischief making.