Russia sees a Western hand behind the Serbian street protests

Russia, fishing in Serbia’s troubled waters after a disputed general election, accused the West on Monday of orchestrating street protests against the government in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, that turned into violence on Sunday evening.

Claims of a Western plot by Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Harchenko, were the latest attempts by Moscow to thwart a so far largely fruitless diplomatic campaign by the United States and Europe to lure Serbia out of Russia’s sphere of influence and to sever the traditionally strong ties between Russia and Russia. the two Slavic and Orthodox Christian nations.

Previously peaceful street protests in Belgrade over what the opposition said were a rigged general election on December 17 turned ugly on Sunday after demonstrators tried to storm the capital’s city council building and were met by volleys of tear gas from riot police officers.

The Russian ambassador said in a television interview that there was “irrefutable evidence” that the “riot” was incited by the West. This echoed claims by Serbia’s strongman leader, President Aleksandar Vucic, that his government had been attacked by outside forces seeking a “color revolution,” a term coined by Russia to describe popular uprisings that the country consistently dismisses as Western conspiracies.

“This was an attempted violent takeover of the state institutions of the Republic of Serbia,” Mr. Vucic told Pink TV, a pro-government television station, ridiculing allegations of election irregularities as “lies” perpetrated by his political opponents fictional.

There is no evidence that Western governments fueled last week’s street protests against Mr. Vucic and what his opponents say were stolen elections in Belgrade.

A report from last Monday election observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said Serbian voters had been given a wide choice of candidates and that “freedom of expression and assembly was generally respected.” But, it said, the ruling party had had a “tilted playing field” because “the pressure on voters, the decisive involvement of the president and the systemic advantages of the ruling party undermined the electoral process in general.”

Mr Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party defeated the opposition in this month’s parliamentary elections, but fared less well in Belgrade’s municipal council elections. She won a narrow victory that the opposition attributed to voters who they say illegally flowed into the capital from other countries. parts of the country and from the neighboring countries of Kosovo and Bosnia.

While the opposition accepted defeat in the vote for a new parliament, it vowed to overturn what it said was a rigged Belgrade municipal election result and has organized daily street protests over the past week.

Western countries, wary of burning bridges with Mr Vucic, have been moderate in their criticism of the election. U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Christopher R. Hill last week called on the country to address “deficiencies” in its electoral system, but stressed that “the U.S. government looks forward to continuing our work with the Serbian government” ‘to convey more fully’. included in the family of Western countries.”

Serbia applied to become a member of the European Union in 2009, but its application has been stalled for years. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, pressure from the West has increased on Mr Vucic to take a side.

Mr Vucic condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has not joined European sanctions on Russia and has shown only mixed interest in settling a long-running dispute over the status of Kosovo, a former Serbian territory that declared itself an independent state in 2008 stated. largely by ethnic Albanians, severed ties with Serbia after a 1999 NATO bombing campaign on Belgrade and other cities, leaving even many pro-European Serbs deeply suspicious of the West’s intentions.

The bad blood has slowly subsided between Serbia and the West, which blamed Kosovo, not Mr Vucic, for worsening tensions after a flare-up of violence in mainly Serb areas of northern Kosovo in September. That position led to accusations of Belgrade “appeasement” by European politicians and commentators who see Mr Vucic as the main threat to Balkan peace.

Rather than giving Mr Vucic more leeway to break with hardline Serbian nationalist forces closely allied with Russia, as Washington had hoped, the recent elections appear to have only pushed him closer to Moscow.

After the clashes in Belgrade on Sunday evening, Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, a close ally of Mr Vucic, thanked Russian security forces for sharing information pointing to a Western hand in the opposition protests.

“It will probably not be popular with people from the West, but I feel especially tonight that it is important to stand up for Serbia and thank the Russian security services who had that information and shared it with us,” Ms Brnabic said. .