Moscow's influence in Serbia today is primarily the result of three phenomena: the issue of Kosovo's status, Serbia's energy dependence, as well as the existence of a majority pro-Russian orientation of the public even after the aggression against Ukraine, which includes the actions of the (pro) Russian media. As reported by the media, Serbia is one of the few European countries that has allowed Russian official media (Sputnik, RT - Russia Today) to operate on its territory. In addition, some of the most watched Serbian TV stations with a national frequency, such as TV Happy, have specialized daily shows whose content is in the service of Russian propaganda.
If Serbia ever adopts the Law on the Registry agents of foreign influence, then the first registered individual could be Alexander Vulin, Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Serbia.
Vulin could be said to be the most transparently under Russian influence of all the politicians in the Balkans. Not that he doesn't hide it, but he brags about his Russophilia. By the way, in previous years he was the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Police, and then the Director of the Security Information Agency, which he left in November 2023 with the explanation that he did not want "Western powers" to impose sanctions on Serbia because of him. By the way, Russia is a foreign country, and after the invasion of Ukraine, Serbia did not impose sanctions on Russia, although it is obliged to harmonize itself with EU policy as a candidate for the European Union.
RUSSIAN MODEL FOR ACCOUNTING WITH THE SERBIANS
To make the absurdity even greater, it was the deputies of the Socialist Movement, whose founder was the pro-Russian Vice President of the Government of Serbia Vulin, who submitted to the Parliament a proposal for the Law on a Special Register of Agents of Foreign Influence. By the way, the Socialist Movement is part of the ruling coalition together with the Serbian Progressive Party.
The bill was submitted on November 29 by MPs Đorđe Komlenski and Bojan Torbica, the Belgrade newspaper "Danas" reported. The law on foreign agents exists in Russia and, according to critics, serves to stifle criticism of the government and limit the work of human rights activists and independent media. Vulin's MPs soon spoke about the proposed law for RT Balkan. MP Đorđe Komlenski told RT that the law foresees fines, but not a ban, but only an obligation to clearly indicate who finances you, on the basis of which the one who follows you can clearly understand "where the wind is blowing from".
"Those who do not act contrary to the constitution, the law and do not threaten Serbia's interests in that sense, will not suffer any sanctions except that they will have the obligation to indicate their status on the printed material, and the status is - an agent of foreign influence," Komlenski told RT Balkan.
In the draft law of the Socialist Movement, as reported by Radio Free Europe, "agents" are considered to be all associations and non-profit organizations that mostly finance or otherwise help foreign entities. Foreign entities are understood to mean other states, their bodies, international and foreign organizations, foreign nationals or registered non-governmental organizations financed from abroad.
An "agent of foreign influence" is also defined as a non-profit organization that engages in political action, as well as other activities related to political action aimed at endangering democracy, violating the integrity of Serbia, violating freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and inciting national, racial or religious hatred. and intolerance.
It is also foreseen that every appearance of a representative of "agents of foreign influence" must have a mark that the organization is registered in the Register of Agents of Foreign Influence maintained by the Ministry of Justice. According to RSE, the controversial law on "foreign agents" in Russia is being used by the authorities to suppress opposition to President Vladimir Putin by cracking down on non-governmental organizations, media houses and individuals the government has labeled as foreign agents.
The law on "foreign agents" - adopted in Russia in 2012 and expanded in 2022 - requires organizations that receive foreign funds to register as "foreign agents". Critics say the law is part of a systematic campaign to stifle criticism of the government and restrict the work of human rights activists and independent media. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in October that Russia's law on "foreign agents" violates the European Convention on Human Rights, and that it is "arbitrary" and used in an "overbroad and unpredictable manner."
The Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin, publicly praises not only the President of Serbia, but also the entire Russian Federation headed by Vladimir Putin. As the vice president of the Serbian government, he is in charge of improving cooperation with the BRICS countries, and is a frequent guest of officials in Russia. It is under US sanctions for its links to organized crime, drugs and ties to the Kremlin.
As a reminder, at the beginning of 2024, Putin awarded Vulin with a high award - the Order of "Friendship" for his great personal contribution to the development and improvement of cooperation between the Security and Information Agency of Serbia and the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia (SVR) in the field of ensuring state security and protecting the national interests of Serbia and Russia .
Previously, Vulin received the order from the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia, and as announced by the Movement of Socialists, of which Vulin is the president, he received the order in Moscow, in the premises of the Federal Security Service, one of the intelligence agencies created after the abolition of the KGB .
CONTROVERSIAL LAW LIKE WAVING A RED SCARF
The European Commission (EC) - reported by RSE - said that they were informed about the proposed draft law "on foreign agents" that was submitted to the Serbian Parliament, and reminded the local authorities that every draft law should be in accordance with European standards.
"We remind you that any law of a country that is a candidate for EU membership must be in accordance with our basic values - basic democratic values, including freedom of speech and expression," the response from the EC press office states.
Serbia, along with Montenegro, is considered a leader in the EU accession process. Before becoming a member of the EU, a candidate country must harmonize its laws, policies, institutions, and practices with EU standards and requirements. A similar draft law has been in the Parliament of Montenegro since October. The proposal for this law was submitted by the coalition For the Future of Montenegro, which consists of the pro-Russian parties of the former Democratic Front (DF) - the New Serbian Democracy of Andrija Mandić and the Democratic People's Party of Milan Knežević.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, answered a journalist's question about the controversial law and said that it was not the government that proposed it, but one party.
"One political party proposed that law, and if the government wanted to, it would have adopted it. As in every country, whenever a similar law is mentioned, the same ones invariably appear. As always, those who are affected by this, get in touch. People know who works for foreign countries and who works for their own country," said President Vučić.
However, it is not only the Socialist Movement that advocates checking foreign influence, but only Western influence.
Vladimir Đukanović Đuka, MP of the Serbian Progressive Party, member of the Presidency of the SNS, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Justice, State Administration and Local Self-Government, member of the Committee for the Control of Security Services of the Parliament of Serbia, until recently a member of the High Council of the Judiciary and the State Council of Prosecutors, lawyer, trustee of the Progressive Party about the Palace of Justice and the "Jovanjica" case, he wrote on Ix (Twitter) last summer: "The state should urgently pass a law that will regulate the work of the NGO sector and to do everything to prevent them from receiving money for their activities from abroad. Especially to do everything and to expel from the country all NGOs that are under Soros' patronage."
And Đukanović didn't stop there. A few days ago, he wrote about the civil society organization CRTA, also on social networks, among other things:
"... The worse it is for Serbia, the better it is for them, because the funds lie in the account for anti-state activities."
The law "on foreign agents" exists in Russia and Georgia, and its variations in other countries such as Belarus and Slovakia. Because of him, Georgia's European integration process was practically interrupted. Current events in Georgia and the new pro-Russian government's persecution of dissidents have brought the country to the brink of civil war.
Russian influence in Serbia today is primarily a consequence of three phenomena: the status of Kosovo, Serbia's energy dependence, as well as the existence of a majority pro-Russian orientation of the public even after the aggression against Ukraine, which includes the actions of the (pro) Russian media. As reported by the media, Serbia is one of the few European countries that has allowed Russian official media (Sputnik, RT – Russia Today) to operate on its territory. In addition, some of the most watched Serbian TV stations with a national frequency, such as TV Happy, have specialized daily shows whose content is in the service of Russian propaganda.
SPY SCANDALS - UNSUITABLE RUSSIANS IN SERBIA
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician and former British-Russian journalist, arrived in London this summer as part of the largest prisoner swap between Russia and the West since the Cold War. He was previously imprisoned in a Siberian prison cell almost identical to the one in the Arctic Circle, where opposition leader Alexei Navalny was found dead. Like Navalny, he was imprisoned under false charges and was poisoned twice - he was the target of the same FSB unit that poisoned Navalny. Kara-Murze's journey to the gulag began in Serbia.
Namely, everything started with the signing of the Agreement on cooperation with the secret service of Russia. This agreement was concluded in 2017, and it was ratified in the Serbian Parliament a year later. The opposition contested this type of commitment and warned of potential dangers, while government representatives claimed that it was only about "knowledge exchange".
We saw what kind of "knowledge exchange" we are talking about with the example of the Russian opposition members who were followed and eavesdropped in Belgrade, which ended with their arrest and prison sentences of more than two decades. One of them is Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian politician, writer and historian, sentenced to 25 years in prison for "high treason". It was Kara-Murza who once spoke in an interview for the nova.rs portal about the wiretapping of Russian opposition members in Belgrade, in which, as he claimed, the then Minister of Police, and later the director of the BIA, Aleksandar Vulin, was involved.
He then described in detail how he was followed by members of the Serbian police, noting that his colleagues were under constant escort during their stay in Belgrade, where they held a meeting of local opposition representatives from Russia. Subsequently, as Kara-Murza claimed, Vulin forwarded those recordings to Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council of Russia.
However, this was not the end of the sufferings of Russian oppositionists in Serbia. Anti-war activist Petar Nikitin, who spoke openly against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was detained last year at Belgrade's "Nikola Tesla" airport, where he was handed a decision banning him from entering our country. After almost two days and a stormy reaction from the public, Nikitin still entered Serbia, where his family also lives.
Then Russian activist Vladimir Volokhonski was handed a decision rejecting his request to extend his stay in Serbia. It was decided that way because, in the opinion of the Security and Information Agency, his stay on the territory of our country represented an unacceptable security risk.
Russians who are critics of Putin's regime are also treated as enemies by the Serbian government, while during this time Russians who do not declare themselves politically, at least not in Belgrade, live and do business unhindered.
From February 2022 to the middle of 2023, more than 30000 Russians registered temporary residence in Serbia, according to data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs cited by Reuters. The agency states that the officials did not provide data for the comparative period before this one, but they pointed out that there was a significant increase in registered residences.
The newly arrived Russians founded more than 11000 companies, and IT companies stand out as the leading industry.
The first professional conference of the High Prosecution Council (HPC), which was opened by the president of that council, prosecutor Branko Stamenković, was held in November of this year on Kopaonik mountain. The conference was attended by chief public prosecutors from all over Serbia, from the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, and handbooks on the adopted by-laws were distributed to those present.
About 150 participants of the conference, prosecutors and professors of law, were able to exchange opinions and arguments on the current amendments to the law on an equal basis for two days.
None of the participants had any idea that such a conference would be the reason for a raid on almost the entire Serbian prosecutor's office. Namely, the portal of the oldest daily newspaper "Politika" transmitted in its entirety the disputed text of the obscure portal vaseljenska.net under the title "American influence on the Serbian judiciary: Ambassador Hill gathered his pets from the prosecution in Kopaonik", which, among other things, states:
"Among those gathered at this event, which is called 'The Year in Changes', there were, in addition to Stamenković, the prosecutors whom many call 'Fake Laure' - Bojana Savović and Jasmina Paunović. It was these prosecutors, under the clear control of the American ambassador, who in the previous period caused numerous scandals with their actions, all with the support of Western structures and Ambassador Hill. Savović and Paunović are, as many believe, part of the American agenda to undermine the sovereignty of the Serbian judiciary."
Portal vaseljenska.net is not registered as a media, but as an association. However, a certain Vesna Veizović from Bajina Bašta presents herself as the editor of that portal, as evidenced by earlier court verdicts in which she was convicted for uttering insults and untruths, which we had access to.
The text about the prosecutors is also full of falsehoods. Namely, the American ambassador Christopher Hill was not present at the conference, nor even anyone from that embassy. In addition to the US embassy, the event was also financed by the European Union, the Council of Europe, the World Bank, and the OSCE. Jasmina Paunović, the prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, did not attend the conference either.
By the way, she, along with prosecutor Bojana Savović, has been the target of the tabloids for two years, more precisely since they were kicked out of the anti-corruption department by order of the head of the VJT in Belgrade, Nenad Stefanović, and since they talked about the persecution they are suffering from Stefanović because of that. that they wanted to do their work according to the law, and not according to the orders of the political powerful.
Prosecutor Savović told Vreme that "This is a text I don't know in which order, since I raised my voice, that I was targeted as a 'foreign mercenary'". By the way, Bojana Savović was also demoted at work, she is being transferred from department to department and the head of VJT regularly files disciplinary reports against her.
It's absurd, but it's true, prosecutor Savović and six of her colleagues were sent to the conference in Kopaonik by the VJT Administration in Belgrade, that is, their boss Stefanović. And the absurdities never end, but the universal one does not write about it, one of the speakers at the conference was prosecutor Zoran Nikolov - a member of the Association of Prosecutors and Judges, which he also leads and whose president is Nenad Stefanović, the head of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade.
After this article about prosecutors, the president of the High Prosecutor's Council, Branko Stamenković, was targeted by the tabloids, but also by Nenad Stefanović, who was labeled as a politically unsuitable prosecutor.
Vaseljenska.net regularly writes about the invincibility of Russia and Putin, glorifies their aggression against Ukraine, and regularly praises the head of Belgrade's VJT, Nenad Stefanović. The editor of that portal, Veizović, also presents the owner of the "Jovanjica" estate, Predrag Koluvija, as a hero on social networks, who was accused of organized crime as the leader of a group that grew marijuana - in, according to the indictment, the largest skunk factory in Europe. The media write that it is the VJT in Belgrade, headed by Stefanović, who, as revenge, is leading the persecution and setting up proceedings against the police inspectors who discovered "Jovanjica".
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
In the months after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, the flames of rebellion spread throughout Serbia. The first protests started in Novi Sad right after the tragedy. The authorities responded with arrests, police cordons and intimidation, but instead of calming down the protesters, new protests followed.
The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
"I'm standing in the cordon, and my daughter is shouting at me 'aw, aw, killers'. What should I do? If they ordered me - I would throw down my baton and bulletproof vest and stand on the side of my child," a police officer from the south of Serbia, who works as needed in the Belgrade Police Brigade, told "Vreme"
The recent formation of the Đura Macuta government is part of the regime's revenge and cynicism. This can be seen most in the "black troika" of new ministers appointed to deal with the parts of society that are the leaders and symbols of the big rebellion that lasted for several months, the cause of which was the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 human lives. Education, universities, unsolicited media and parts of the judiciary that refuse to listen to orders, either publicly, with announcements, or hiding behind legal procedures, should be dismantled. Those who will have no problem doing everything they are told, even reinforcing the orders with their own inventions, are chosen for this.
Who mentions the extraordinary elections when the rating of the party in power is falling, and according to all surveys, Vučić is not the most important political factor in the country, but the students?
The brutal beating of students and citizens in Novi Sad shows that the regime is not only ready to take revenge - it is actually carrying it out
If in reality the principle of balance is violated - the way the incompetent regime violated the relationship between the concrete elements at the Novi Sad Railway Station - reality will behave like a canopy: it will fail to obey
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