Every year Serbia is said to be turning West. Every year the same cycle begins again.
The death of Ratko Mladić, besides reminding the world of the genocide committed by him and his forces, and reviving painful memories for his victims, also reminded me of the recurring circus of Serbia–EU relations. After Serbia’s justice minister announced that Mladic would receive full state and military honours, Brussels seemed gravely concerned. Some MEP’s even went so far as to claim that state honours for Mladic is a line no candidate country should cross.
The kerfuffle will eventually die down. If the familiar pattern holds, the Europeans will probably negotiate something with Vucic, under which full state honours are diluted just enough for the optics, while looking very much like state honours in practice. The Europeans will claim victory because it wasn’t really a state funeral, and the rest of the Balkans will roll its collective eyes so hard that the sound will launch a thousand pigeons across Europe.
But the circus will continue, and it goes something like this; Serbia does something unpleasant, the EU is gravely concerned, Serbia then does something relatively pleasant. Articles are written about how Serbia is about to pivot to the West. Everyone rejoices. Then Serbia does something to pop that bubble, thus restarting the cycle.
Every time Serbia does something unpleasant, the EU asks it to decide whether it belongs with the values of the European Union. The weird thing is that Serbia has been deciding for decades. The cybernetician Stafford Beer gave us a useful rule: the purpose of a system is what it does. Institutions are best understood through the outcomes they repeatedly produce, not their mission statements, declared aspirations or speeches written for foreign audiences. By that measure, Serbia’s political system has long been an anti-European actor in the Balkans. “Anti-European” here is a description of a state system that repeatedly undermines the security, legal order and democratic values that Europe claims to represent.
For your reading pleasure, with the help of GPT, I’ve compiled a non-exhaustive list of the Serbian state or state-linked actors acting against the interests of the EU. Not every one of these cases proves direction from the Serbian presidency – that is not necessary to see the pattern. Systems operate through more than written orders. They create permissive environments, supply infrastructure, protect intermediaries, reward ambiguity and preserve plausible deniability.
Serbian-Linked Cases Affecting European Interests
Scope: “Serbian-linked” means that a Serbian institution, Serbian national, Serbia-registered company, Serbia-based facility or closely linked Bosnian-Serb actor appears in the documented case. It does not automatically mean that the Serbian government directed the activity. Allegations and non-final judgments are identified in the descriptions.
| Case | Date | Description | Documentation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cases disclosed or developed in 2026 | |||
| Belgrade companies used to relay sanctioned Russian cyber infrastructure | 2022–26; reported 28 Aug 2026 | Within 24 hours of Aeza Group being sanctioned by OFAC on 1 July 2025, Aeza began reallocating its US IP resources to Belgrade-registered Smart Digital Ideas; days later the resources moved on to UK-registered Hypercore Ltd. OFAC designated both on 19 November 2025, saying Aeza used them to evade sanctions and build infrastructure not publicly tied to its brand. BIRN established that Smart Digital Ideas was founded in October 2022 by Andreas Maul, who became an AfD city councillor in Selm, Germany, on 1 November 2025. A second Belgrade firm at the same address, Cipher Operations, is assessed by cybersecurity firm Intrinsec as a probable rebrand of an Iranian bulletproof-hosting provider; its owner denies knowingly supporting illicit activity. Aeza’s wider infrastructure has been linked by researchers to ransomware, data theft, darknet markets and the Doppelganger disinformation network. | |
| Opaque pro-Russian advertising aimed at Montenegro | Jan–Jun 2026 | Serbia-based and other regional pages bought undisclosed Meta advertising inside Montenegro to push pro-Russian, anti-EU and nationalist messages during a politically sensitive period. | |
| Fast-track Serbian citizenship for sanctioned Russians | Jan–May 2026 | Serbia granted citizenship to 44 Russian nationals in the first five months of 2026 under an expedited “national interest” procedure, and to more than 300 since 2022 — four times as many as to all other foreign citizens combined this year. Recipients include Valery Kazikayev, under US sanctions since April 2023 over business ties to Alisher Usmanov. Serbian passports carry visa-free Schengen access; the European Commission has said the practice poses a potential security risk and has repeated the concern from its 2025 enlargement report. | |
| BIA penetration of the OSCE mission in Kosovo | Conduct to Feb 2025; first-instance judgment 27 Apr 2026 | The Pristina Basic Court found former OSCE Mission employee Jelena Đukanović guilty of espionage for supplying Serbia’s BIA with internal mission documents and information on the security, political and social situation in Kosovo, especially the four Serb-majority northern municipalities. The indictment covers conduct from an unspecified date until her arrest on 28 February 2025. Contact ran through Aleksandar Vlajić, a BIA resident agent sentenced to five years in June 2025. She pleaded not guilty, received six years and her lawyer said he would appeal. | |
| Long-running BIA source inside Kosovo’s radicalisation networks | Nov 2009–May 2025; first-instance judgment 15 Jun 2026 | The Pristina Basic Court sentenced Hysri Selimi to six years for espionage. The indictment charges that from November 2009 until his arrest on 6 May 2025 he was recruited by the BIA and paid to report on KLA figures and wartime killings, on religious radicalisation in Kosovo, and on the number of Kosovars who joined ISIS and later returned. Selimi had travelled to Syria and joined ISIS himself, and was separately convicted of terrorism in 2022; prosecutors say he resumed working for the BIA after serving that sentence. He pleaded not guilty at the espionage trial, admitted meeting BIA officers, and claimed he had been acting as a double agent. The verdict is appealable. | |
| Russian camps in Bosnia and Serbia training Moldovan recruits | Jul–Sep 2024; judgments and evidence 2026 | Russian instructors ran camps at Glamočani near Banja Luka and at Radenka in eastern Serbia, training Moldovans to break police cordons, assemble and fly drones rigged to drop shock and explosive devices, make incendiaries, and locate government and diplomatic buildings in Banja Luka as targeting practice. Preparation was aimed at unrest around Moldova’s October 2024 presidential election and EU referendum. On 6 February 2026 a Chisinau court convicted Aliona Gotco, Ludmila Costenco and Vladimir Harcevnicov to 13.5 years in total; none attended and arrest warrants were issued. Ion Chirita and Nikita Sirenko were convicted on 26 March 2026 to six and a half years suspended, and Dilan Danil in separate proceedings. All verdicts are first-instance and appealable. Testimony placed Wagner-linked personnel at the camps. Bosnian prosecutors have an open investigation; Republika Srpska officials and the Russian embassy in Sarajevo deny the camps existed. | |
| Serbia-based cell staged provocations in France and Germany | Apr–Sep 2025; leader traced Mar 2026 | A group of at least 13 people recruited in Serbia carried out four operations in Paris and Berlin. They posted Armenian genocide stickers across the 18th arrondissement, threw green paint over Paris synagogues, the Holocaust Museum and Jewish restaurants in May 2025, placed pig heads outside nine Paris-area mosques in September 2025, and left five plastic skeletons bearing messages at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. Serbian police arrested 11 alleged members in late September 2025 on warrants from the Higher Prosecution Office in Smederevo. Three pleaded guilty and were convicted in December 2025; the verdicts state that structures of the Russian Federation’s intelligence service supplied instructions and money. Participants were paid €500–1,500 per operation. BIRN and RFE/RL located the alleged organiser, Momčilo Gajić, in Moscow in January 2026; a second organiser is known only as “Hunter”. | |
| Sanctions-evasion network supplying Russia through Serbia | 2022–26; investigated 1 Apr 2026 | Eleven Serbia-based firms have been designated by the United States and the European Union for moving electronics, aircraft components and other dual-use goods to Russia. Customs data show that one of them, TR Industries, now trades as Onderon Systems and continued exporting after the designations, shipping goods worth nearly €750,000 to Russia in 2024. Of the eleven, only MCI Trading responded to RFE/RL; its director said the company halted import-export activity after the June 2023 US decision and is seeking delisting. | |
| Banjska armed attack — judicial findings | Attack 24 Sep 2023; first-instance judgment 24 Apr 2026 | Around 30 heavily armed Kosovo Serbs blocked a bridge at Banjska and ambushed the police patrol sent to clear it, killing Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku; three attackers died in the ensuing firefight at the monastery. The Pristina Basic Court sentenced Blagoje Spasojević and Vladimir Tolić to life and Dušan Maksimović to 30 years. Presiding judge Ngadhnjim Arrni found that the group had used heavy weapons in an attempt to sever northern Kosovo and annex it to Serbia. The indictment names 44 individuals and one company, and states that the attackers trained at the Pasuljanske Livade range in central Serbia. Alleged leader Milan Radoičić, who has publicly admitted organising the attack, remains in Serbia; no indictment has been filed there. Belgrade rejects the court’s findings. | |
| Russian battlefield propaganda streamed by Bosnian-Serb fighter | 5 Feb 2026 | A Bosnian-Serb mercenary who fought for Russia in Ukraine livestreamed Russian FPV-drone attacks and active fighters to thousands of TikTok followers after returning home, turning battlefield violence into propaganda and potential recruitment content. He is simultaneously seeking a plea deal with Bosnian authorities over his own role in the war. | |
| Earlier documented cases | |||
| Loznica camp prepared disruption of Moldova’s election | 16 Jul – 12 Sep 2025 | Serbian prosecutors say between 150 and 170 Moldovan and Romanian nationals passed through combat-tactical training at the Sunčana Reka complex near Loznica, intended to prepare them to resist Moldovan police during post-election unrest on 28 September. Two Serbian citizens, named locally as Lazar Popović and Savo Stevanović, were arrested on 26 September on suspicion of organising and financing it. Moldovan police detained around 70 people days before the vote, saying most had trained at the site. President Vučić confirmed that three Russian citizens were present but said he could not claim a Russian intelligence service was involved, and that the information had come from private sources rather than Serbia’s security services. | |
| Serbian recruitment pipeline for Russia’s war | 2014–present; investigated 31 Oct 2025 | BIRN infiltrated Telegram channels in which veteran Serb fighters recruited volunteers for the Russian armed forces, instructing them to enter Russia as tourists and promising cash, citizenship and benefits for their families. | |
| NoviSpy campaign against Serbian civil society | 2024 | Amnesty International’s Security Lab documented Serbian police and BIA officers using Cellebrite tools to unlock the phones of journalists and activists, then installing NoviSpy spyware to extract images, messages and other data. Amnesty attributed the campaign to Serbian authorities with high confidence. | |
| Assault on NATO peacekeepers in Zvečan | 29 May 2023 | Kosovo-Serb protesters attacked KFOR troops with blunt weapons, incendiaries and explosive devices. KFOR put the final count at 30 injured — 11 Italian and 19 Hungarian soldiers, with fractures and burns from improvised incendiary devices and three Hungarians wounded by firearms. NATO called the assault unprovoked. No direction from Belgrade was established. | |
| BIA surveillance allegedly delivered to Moscow | May 2021 | Russian opposition figures said the BIA recorded their Belgrade meeting and that Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin delivered the material to Russia’s security leadership. Co-organiser Andrei Pivovarov was arrested in Russia shortly afterwards. Serbian authorities have not confirmed the account and it has not been tested in any proceeding. | |
| BIA officer inside North Macedonia parliament attack | 27 Apr 2017 | Serving BIA officer Goran Živaljević, attached to Serbia’s embassy in Skopje, entered parliament with the crowd during the violent assault on Macedonian MPs. His presence was confirmed and acknowledged by Belgrade. No evidence has been established that he directed or coordinated the attack, and the officials later convicted of organising it — subsequently released under a 2018 amnesty law — were from the Macedonian VMRO-DPMNE party. | |
| Gunfire and explosives used against KFOR at Jagnjenica | 28 Nov 2011 | KFOR troops moving to clear a Serb roadblock at Jagnjenica were attacked with small-arms fire and improvised explosives. Twenty-five peacekeepers were injured, two of them — both German — by gunfire; dozens of Serbs were also hurt. It followed a clash at Rudare five days earlier in which 21 peacekeepers were injured. Serbian President Boris Tadić called on Serbs to leave the barricades. | |
| Anti-Kosovo riot at Montenegro’s parliament | 13 Oct 2008 | A pro-Serbian opposition rally against Montenegro’s recognition of Kosovo broke through security barriers and attacked police, leaving dozens injured. No direction from Belgrade was established. | |
| Kosovo-Serb seizure of UN courthouse | 14–17 Mar 2008 | Kosovo-Serb protesters occupied a UN courthouse in Mitrovica and attacked UN and NATO personnel with firearms and grenades when UNMIK moved to retake it. A Ukrainian UN police officer was killed and dozens were wounded. | |
| Belgrade attacks on Western embassies | 21 Feb 2008 | Nationalist rioters broke into and burned part of the US Embassy after a Kosovo protest and attacked other diplomatic sites. US records state that Serbian police protection was withdrawn or absent during the assault; Belgrade disputed that characterisation. | |
Meanwhile, Vučić gives Western governments just enough cooperation to preserve investment and the accession fiction, while pushing nationalist grievance, autocracy, historical revisionism and anti-Western narratives at home.
And yet, every few months or so, we are made to endure yet another, this time it’s real article about how Serbia is just about to pivot westwards. Like clockwork, they come just before some Serbian action pops that bubble. The latest one was very poorly timed, it came two weeks before the latest Mladic kerfuffle. Why does this story keep returning?
Some of it is probably genuine optimism. Some of it may simply be some form of the sunk cost fallacy at the institutional level. The idea that all these years invested in “bringing Serbia closer” can’t have been for naught. Some may even be institutional incentives to continue on the same old tired path, since working groups whose purpose is to make Serbia align with the EU only get funding if there is some sign that they’re doing something. There is a whole ecosystem that depends on good news, and when not-so-horrible news comes about, it spits out another this-time-it’s-for-real story. There may also be some strategic purpose here, repeatedly declaring Serbia to be on the verge of joining the West may actually keep it within the orbit, it keeps Vucic engaged by giving him recognition on limited cooperation and avoids forcing on him a choice he might reject.
But Stafford Beer’s principle applies to EU policy too. Its purpose is what it does.
The empty narrative that Serbia is finally turning westwards lowers the evidentiary bar for what alignment means. It mistakes transactional politics for values and temporary cooperation for strategic loyalty. And, even more annoyingly, it asks its neighbours to disregard their own experience for some optimistic forecast from Brussels. Those of us who live in the Balkans have skin in the game; the cost of being wrong is measured in security crises, institutional paralysis and an elevated probability that you’re next, not embarrassment over some white paper that aged poorly. That’s why so many people in Sarajevo, Prishtina, Zagreb and Podgorica smirk when they hear these stories. They’ve heard that speech before.
Europe should ask itself why a state that repeatedly crosses those lines remains rewarded for declaring that it is walking in the opposite direction. And stop asking what imaginary line is the final one.
Judge the system by its outputs, by its conduct, not by arms purchases, photo ops and carefully calibrated votes. The proposed funeral for Ratko Mladic did not interrupt Serbia’s Western turn, it exposed the weakness of the premise that it was taking place. The bubble will reinflate because an entire system has an incentive to inflate it. It will burst again because Serbia’s pro-western course existed mainly in the imagination of those paid to describe it.
The song and dance is getting old.
© 2026 Elton Dusha. Të gjitha të drejtat të rezervuara. Imazhi në kopertinë është realizuar me AI.
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