Page 45 - bneMag Oct23

bne October 2023 Southeast Europe I 45
Serbia’s treatment of anti-war Russians is sabotaging its investment reputation
Ann Smith in New York
Anti-war campaigners are among the hundreds of thousands of Russians who moved to Serbia since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Months
after they found a temporary home
in Serbia and a safe place to continue their activism, Belgrade started challenging their residencies either without explanation or by labelling them as ‘security risks’. These actions negatively affect Serbia’s reputation as
a desirable investment destination, and raise questions about who is behind such decisions since the only danger those individuals represent is to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda.
The first anti-war Russians to be targeted were the founders of Belgrade-based civil association Russian Democratic Society (RDS), Peter Nikitin and Vladimir
Serbia within seven days and not come back for a year. Irzhanski is a music events organiser and he brings anti-war musicians, currently residing outside of Russia, to perform in Belgrade.
The couple was declared a ‘security risk’. Irzhanski engaged a lawyer, and appealed to the media and public to protest the decision so that he could stay in Serbia.
RDS asked the government to provide a better explanation of these decisions but received the sterile answer: “A body in charge of protection of security of the Republic of Serbia declared that there are security interferences”, shows the correspondence published on the Facebook page of RDS. The answer doesn’t provide information on who made the decisions – the Ministry
of Interior’s departments for border
Among them, according to research conducted by Radio Free Europe’s Serbian service, are the Serbian-Russian Eagles, based in St. Petersburg and with ties to Serbian right-wingers.
The new trend of kicking out anti-war Russians raises the question of who
is giving these orders – local police
and intelligence services or some foreign factor. The way these actions are conducted indicates an intention to hide the ultimate decision-maker.
If Moscow wants those people, it can use official channels to have them delivered. But, if Belgrade delivers them on Moscow’s demand, that would be a horrible stain on its international reputation. On the other hand, if Serbia says it is acting in its own security interests when telling them to leave its territory, it is a milder step – but still a bad message to foreign investors.
‘Little Switzerland’
This is a problem for the Serbian government, whose ambition is to make the country a major investment destination in the region as well as the economic hub for Southeast Europe and a link between the capital coming from the East (UAE, China, etc) and the West (EU, UK, US). When admiring the economic development of the last ten years, President Aleksandar Vucic likes to compare Serbia with Switzerland. Since this is only his dream, people in Serbia reply to his comment saying: “Serbia is a little Switzerland”.
This sentence became very popular when the government decided not to impose sanctions against Russia but
at the same time to firmly support Ukrainian territorial integrity within United Nations and other international platforms. For many locals, this means that Serbia is staying neutral almost like Switzerland was in WWII. This reminds Serbians of the days of Yugoslavia when
“Anti-war Russians are not a threat to Serbia”
Volokhonsky. On July 13, Nikitin was banned from entering Serbia after he had been legally living there for more than seven years, with the explanation that the decision was based on “protective measure of removal, security measure
of expulsion of parties, i.e. ban on
entry”. After spending two days at the airport, he was allowed in following local and international pressure, this time without any explanation. Ten days later Volokhonsky, his partner in the NGO and an anti-regime activist in Russia even prior to the invasion of Ukraine, was denied an extension of his temporary residence permit for employment based on an allegation that his stay threatened national security. He filed an appeal and his future residence is still uncertain.
In late August, Yevgeniy Irzhanski and his wife Elizabet were ordered to leave
control or foreigners, or the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA), or based on which legislation the decisions were made.
Stop the persecution
Since July, RDS has been calling on
the Serbian government to stop the “persecution of Russian anti-war activists”, filing a petition and organising gatherings in Belgrade. Their main motto is: “Anti-war Russians are not
a threat to Serbia”.
This NGO as well as other informal groups of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian expats in Belgrade have existed in Serbia almost since the invasion on Ukraine started and, until this summer, they only faced threats from Russian-Serbian right-wing groups and pro-Russian Serbian movements.
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