Serbia, fertile ground for Kremlin proselytism

The 44-year-old economist acknowledges that her union was tumultuous, but after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the situation degenerated as her husband’s appetite for Russian proselytism grew. The man she fell in love with had become unrecognizable, she told AFP. At one point, her husband, a Bosnian Serb, even forbade their nine-year-old son to listen to Ukrainian folk music labeled as “Nazi”. “I had hoped for support, for understanding, but he started accusing everyone except the Russians,” she continues. A few days ago, she packed her things and left for Ukraine with their child. She doesn’t know if she will ever come back.

Far from Moscow, the Kremlin’s propaganda has found excellent relays in Serbia, where hatred of NATO and the United States is latent, a legacy, among other things, of the bombing campaign carried out in 1999 to put an end to the war in Kosovo. Many of the seven million Serbs side with Moscow in the Ukrainian conflict. In many European countries, authorities have cracked down on Russian media, but it is flourishing in Serbia, where the Serbian media itself repeats Kremlin messages over and over again. “I think the truth lies somewhere in between, but no one talks about it,” Dario Acimovic, a 27-year-old graphic designer, told AFP. “They (the West) cut the pipes to the Russian media so they don’t hear the other side. The result is hysteria”.

The two countries with an Orthodox and Slavic majority are united by cultural and historical ties and many feel close to the Russian “big brother”.

Under Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the government’s control over the Serbian media has increased considerably in recent years. The few independent voices are under intense pressure. In the weeks before the war, Informer, the leading Serbian tabloid, sung the praises of Russian President Vladimir Putin at length. “Ukraine attacked Russia,” headlined the newspaper two days before the invasion. “The Serbian government propaganda media have created a cult of personality around Putin that even exceeds that which they have created for Vucic,” judge Dinko Gruhonjic, professor of journalism at the University of Novi Sad. “It enjoys almost a status of divine right”. According to the latest opinion poll conducted by the independent NGO CRTA, two-thirds of people feel “closer” to Russia and three-quarters believe that Moscow has been forced into war “because of expansionist aims of NATO”.

According to the same poll, 40% of the population would like Serbia to drop its candidacy for the European Union and join forces with Russia. “The pro-government media have taken a clearly pro-Russia position, are neutral towards the EU and negative towards Ukraine,” said researcher Vujo Ilic, one of the authors of the survey. “Russia is the alternative presented to voters to prove that Serbia can manage without the EU”, he specifies. The two countries with an Orthodox and Slavic majority are united by cultural and historical ties and many feel close to the Russian “big brother”.

In Belgrade, T-shirts bearing the image of Vladimir Putin are selling like hotcakes. The letter Z, which has become the symbol of the Russian invasion, adorns the walls of the capital. The wars that consecrated the bloody disintegration of the former Yugoslavia have left their mark. “I don’t trust the Western media,” Tihomir Vranjes, a 73-year-old retiree, told AFP. “I remember what they said about the Serbs during the war. They presented us as animals. And if it was not true at the time, it is not true today what they say about the Russians”. Serbian media’s coverage of the war and the prevalence of Russian media angered the Ukrainian ambassador in Belgrade, who felt that “Serbian citizens were not properly informed”.

But keeping up to date is not necessarily easy in the small Balkan country. For Liubov Maric, who nevertheless has access to first-hand information on events in Ukraine, it was sometimes difficult to navigate the deluge of disinformation in Serbia. “Their propaganda is so effective that after five minutes of reading, I begin to question myself”.