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dictatorship under former president Boris Yeltsin.
“This is completely the same thing!
They are building these shopping malls that will stand later like skeletons, monuments to that culture... all the same is now going on here. I recognise everything that was happening to us in the 1990s,” the Russian protester against the Serbian president said.
Later, at a press conference on
July 8, a reporter from pro-regime private tv station Pink TV asked the president: “From where did Russian and Montenegrin citizens come to yesterday’s protest?”, to which the president replied that he had proof of “certain things” but was waiting for a report from Serbia’s intelligence services.”
A reporter from national Prva TV asked Vucic for a comment about the press release published by Belgrade-based think tank Center for Euro Atlantic Studies (CEAS) in response to the protests, which stated that the protests aim to weaken Serbia’s position and that the Russian stamp is recognisable in all that.
In its July 8 press release, CEAS wrote that in the main leaders of the violent demonstrations on July 7, the public had the opportunity to witness “pro- Russian public figures” who use any means to delegitimise Serbia’s attempts to reach a compromise on a new status for Kosovo through a comprehensive multidimensional agreement, which would take into consideration the arguments of Serbia on the one hand, and keep it on the European path on the other. That is why the protests were timed for just a couple of days before Vucic’s meetings regarding the Pristina dialogue.
“I have no doubts that those who worked on all these last night had the intention to weaken the position of Serbia. We have, for now, proof about the entanglement of officials from some regional services and about everything else we can talk later, when our services conduct detailed analyses. I can only speak about things for which I have proof,” Vucic said.
Vucic was due to meet the Russian ambassador to Serbia Aleksandar Botsan Harchenko on July 8, his cabinet announced day before. However, the meeting was canceled the morning after the protests on July 7.
Russia clings on to the Western Balkans
This isn’t the first allegation that Russians are behind anti-Vucic protests. The Western Balkans are one of the battlegrounds between Russia and the West in their struggle for influence. It is a struggle that Russia has gradually been losing in the region, where for every state the primary objective is
EU accession. While Serbia remains militarily neutral, other states have opted to join Nato, with Montenegro and North Macedonia becoming the Alliance’s newest members. This has left Russia using its soft power and fermenting trouble at demonstrations to hold onto some of its influence.
In one curious example reported by Serbian daily Blic on June 11, Yevgeny Primakov Jr., a Russian journalist recently appointed head of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation, a federal agency that operates under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has close
ties with part of the Serbian opposition – namely the leaders of the Alliance for Serbia (SZS) Obradovic and Dragan Djilas. Blic reported that, in March 2019, Primakov approached Vucic as
a journalist and came to interview him but used the chance to suggest that he form a technical government with the SZS. At that moment, protests called ‘1 of 5 million’ in which SZS participated were still taking place. However, Vucic’s SNS had a comfortable majority in the parliament and didn’t need a technical government with other parties, some of which didn’t even have MPs.
Blic reported that Primakov made the proposal without warning. An unnamed source told Blic that it was a very unpleasant talk, and that Vucic told
him that he didn’t let anyone choose governments in Serbia.
“Bearing in mind history of relations
between Primakov and Vucic, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s decision
to name a controversial journalist to a strategically important position can be read differently. Still, it is the dominant opinion that it indicates that increased pressure over the government in Serbia is planned,” Blic said on June 11.
Ambassador Harchenko later demanded an apology from Blic over “defamatory allegations” that Russia aimed to “separate Serbia from the EU”.
Harchenko also vehemently denied any links between Russia and the protests in Belgrade. "Although the CEAS's pointing out absurd, unfounded accusations against Russia is not uncommon, it is surprising how distorted the perception of reality can be among 'experts' who have found a 'Russian trace' in the organisation of the riots in Serbia," the Russian ambassador to Serbia wrote on his Twitter account.
He added in a separate tweet that "it is very unfortunate when, as an instigator of the propaganda of the "Russian threat" and the spread of primitive Russophobic clichés, rejecting all standards of professionalism and objectivity, appears an organisation that aspires to the role of a "centre for studies".
“It is even sadder when the fabrications are recklessly supported by a number of the country's media,” he concluded.
Keeping the Kosovo question frozen
Russian interest in chaos in Belgrade is not hard to see as it has multiple reasons to delay any solution of the Belgrade- Pristina issue that gives the Kremlin room to maintain its so-called ‘soft influence’ over Serbia.
Russia doesn’t recognise Kosovo and blocks its entry to the United Nations through its veto in the Security Council, as does China. This gives Moscow a hold over Serbia, the largest economy among the EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans and a potential future foothold in the EU, that it is reluctant to give up.
While the EU and US have been pushing for a solution to the Belgrade-Pristina dispute, Russia wants it to remain a frozen
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