Serbia and Vucic, the perennial culprits

The London-based "Guardian" recently published a story from which one could conclude that "hundreds" of volunteers from Serbia are heading to Russia to join its conquering army in Ukraine.

In reality, after hundreds of words on the pages of one of the world's most reputable newspapers, you can see that they have "evidence" of only two or three war dogs from Serbia who want to join Putin's army. Moreover, the names of these two or three renegades have been circulating in the European press for the past ten years, starting from Crimea, as "proof" that Serbia is a loyal ally of Russia and that its people are actively fighting for Putin's goals.

This trash of an article has now appeared in The Guardian, but larger and smaller newspapers throughout Western Europe have been publishing it since 2014 when Russia began the occupation of Ukraine. And they all carry the same message - Look, battalions of battle-hardened fighters from Serbia are about to march, veterans of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, to stand under Putin's flag and conquer Ukraine. But that never happened, not in 2014, nor in 2015, nor in October, when The Guardian wrote about it, quite late compared to its European counterparts.

Neither The Guardian nor any other major European newspaper has published a story that hardly anyone from Serbia is going to fight for Putin, and that even the twenty or so who fought from 2014 onwards were convicted as soon as they returned to the country. There's no article about Serbia having a strict law prohibiting participation in any foreign war, and that this law is strictly enforced. And that's the main reason why there are no Serbian mercenaries in Putin's army, except for a few swindlers who have been serving as "sources" to European media and as models for Russian war propaganda for the past ten years.

If there were such articles, it would have to be said that Serbia is truly remarkable in suppressing extremism of any kind because, in a country where millions claim to adore Russia and support its destruction of Ukraine, no one has gone to fight for it. It would be fair to say that the Serbian President, Vucic, is the main European barrier to the spillover of the Ukrainian war to the rest of the continent, something Moscow is keen on.

It would also be fair to mention that German security services counted this summer that there are exactly 39 of its citizens on the front lines in Ukraine (all of them political extremists). Of these, 12 are fighting on the side of Ukraine, a German ally, while as many as 27 are on the side of Russia! So, in Putin's army, there are 27 times more Germans than Serbs.

However, it is much easier, more profitable, more comfortable, and sexier to stick with the established narrative - Serbia is a Russian ally, Vucic is close to Putin, Serbia and Vucic disrupt the European ideal of support for Ukraine, Belgrade is the weakest link through which Moscow will ignite the flames of war across Europe. But none of this is true.

It is true that Putin's Russia wants to create a gap through Serbia to unleash a wave of war, first in the Balkans and then across Europe. They've desperately wanted this for years, investing a lot of money, exerting political and intelligence pressure, fabricating fake news, and spreading disinformation. But they just can't seem to achieve it.

Why not assume that articles in European media, like the one in The Guardian, are actually a part of this large Russian operation, a PR "smokescreen" in which lies should become the truth, and proper behavior is declared a crime? Why not vilify Serbia for preparing battalions for Russia, because in real life, Serbia is the biggest barrier to the spread of extremism? Moscow would gladly pay for that.

The resistance that Serbia and Vucic provide to this pressure deserves respect, not deceitful articles that believe two frauds and Kremlin propaganda.

The Kremlin will never forgive Vucic for persistently refusing to grant diplomatic status to their personnel in the Nis humanitarian center. They had so well planned to use this "humanitarian" cover, originally established during Boris Tadic's time, to infiltrate their intelligence agency, and later probably even the military, into the heart of Europe without firing a single shot.

They won't forget either that he has prevented the escalation of violence in northern Kosovo several times when Moscow was eager to see the Serbian Army enter Kosovo and clash with NATO. Most of all, they will hold it against him for remaining calm during days of enormous tension in Kosovo, stopping Serbian extremists from lighting a fire, and refraining from military action while persistently seeking a political solution to protect the Kosovo Serbs.

Never has there been approval, let alone support, from Belgrade for the territorial breakup of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Milorad Dodik, also one of the important channels of Russia's destructive influence in the Balkans, advocates every now and then. Unlike major Western democracies, no pro-Russian extremist movement in Serbia can detach itself from zero-point-something citizen support in elections, even though Moscow invests so much in their "patriotic" political line.

Even now, while Jewish shops are being smashed across Western Europe (like in the 1930s) and street celebrations of Hamas terrorism are taking place, Serbia has immediately raised a barrier against extremists. Vucic is one of the first European leaders to strongly condemn Hamas's crimes in Israel on the same day they happened and to support the Jewish people to live in peace.

Unlike many others, Serbia did not wait to hear what the great powers had to say and then follow suit. While major European capitals struggle to stop the violence of those who support terrorists, the Serbian capital will host the largest Israeli basketball club to peacefully host its European games.

It's a pitiful campaign that turns Serbia into a sort of lapdog for the masters of war and terrorism, a campaign that has been going on for years and over the largest European media without any evidence. Today's Serbia is the opposite of that. Disproportionate to its size, it is a huge obstacle to the spread of wars and extremism. Instead of earning deep respect for such resistance, it pays a high price as a defamed state, and its leader is seen as an untrustworthy statesman. Someone is washing their dirty conscience this way. And money.

Written by: Orhan Dragas, International Security Institute