In Serbia, a strongman under fire hails himself as defender of the nation

Courted by US and European diplomats, cheered on by a media machine bent on defaming his critics, he has four years left in a presidential term that was secured last year with a landslide re-election victory.

But President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s strong leader for more than a decade, has never looked more lost than when he appeared this week in an official video on the huge roof terrace of his presidential palace to share a bowl of cherries with two lieutenants – and complain about street protesters who rudely berated them, including “abnormal lunatics, murderers and criminals”.

Over-the-top insults, a regular feature of Rottweiler tabloids loyal to Mr. Vucic and pro-government television stations, have mostly been directed at the president’s enemies, at least in public. But after weeks of street protests began last month two mass shootingsMr. Vucic is now on the receiving end – and on the defensive like never before since establishing himself in 2012 as the linchpin of Serbian politics.

The protests, with calls for the resignation of senior law enforcement officers and the revocation of broadcasting licenses from two pro-government television stations, have turned into a wider uprising against a “climate of violence” attributed to Mr Vucic and his media attack dogs. . Another protest is planned for Friday evening.

“I’m not betting on his demise, because leaders like Vucic have very powerful survival techniques,” said Vuk Vuksanovic of the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, an independent research institute. “But there’s an open wound and sharks circling in the water.”

Russia, whose ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, was eagerly angling these troubled waters this week, blamed the West for fueling the protest movement, which coincided with a flare-up of tensions in Kosovo – the former Serbian territory which declared independence in 2008.

When tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Belgrade late last month, Mr Vucic ordered his army to move into northern Kosovo, largely inhabited by ethnic Serbs. That move followed a decision by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti to confiscate municipal buildings in the area and install new ethnic Albanian mayors, who ultimately won, except for a dozen ethnic Serb voters who had the vote. boycotted.

That enraged Kosovo Serbs, who attacked NATO peacekeepers, wounding dozens of them and prompting the alliance to send hundreds of additional troops to northern Kosovo.

Referring to the problems in Kosovo, Mr. Botsan-Kharchenko, Moscow’s ambassador, told RT Balkan, a Russian state media operation, that “the aim of the West is to change Serbia’s politics” – a message that played for nationalist Serbs who see Russia as their defender and loathe the United States for NATO’s 1999 bombing during a war over Kosovo.

A recent survey by a research group Demostat found that only 3 percent of Serbs said they admired the United States and wanted good relations with it, as opposed to 22 percent who felt that way about Russia. At the same time, 32 percent favored the European Union and the Scandinavian countries, indicating that support for Russia, while strong, lags behind that for the West in general.

And what the Russian ambassador presented as a Western plot to stir up trouble in Kosovo and fire Mr Vucic is seen as the exact opposite by most pundits, including protesters.

Kosovo, said Cedomir Cupic, a political science professor at the University of Belgrade, “is already lost” because there is no realistic possibility of Serbia taking back and governing more than a million troubled ethnic Albanians. But for Russia, he said, the domestic passions it still generates are a godsend for Moscow — a “toothpick it can poke around at any time to unnerve the US and Europe.”

The violence in Kosovo has also brought some rare good news to Mr Vucic, playing his strong side as a defender of Serbian interests as he struggles to defuse street protests.

The situation has irked the United States and the European Union, which have long tried to lower temperatures and broker a settlement over Kosovo. They condemned in unusually strong terms the deployment of security forces in North Kosovo by Mr Kurti, the Prime Minister of Kosovo.

Tensions in Kosovo “only help Vucic” by sparking passions over territory that most Serbs consider part of their country, said Milomir Mandic, Demostat’s general manager.

“Kurti is constantly helping Vucic,” said Pavle Grbovic, an opposition member of the Free Citizens’ Movement of Serbia’s parliament who has helped organize the weekly street protests in Belgrade.

“No one on the Serbian political scene has done more for Serbia’s position in Kosovo and for Mr Vucic than Mr Kurti,” he said.

While senior US and European diplomats are outraged by what they see as provocation by Kosovo, Serbia enjoys being treated as an important partner.

General Daniel R. Hokanson, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Belgrade this week and praised what he described as a “truly fantastic partnership” with Serbia.

His praise is part of US efforts to move Serbia away from Russia and toward the European Union. There are few signs that the European bloc is interested in reviving Serbia’s long-delayed application to join and Serbia has hesitated to impose sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.

But Serbia voted at the United Nations to condemn Moscow and, to Russian fury, Serbian-made weapons have ended up in the hands of Ukrainian forces.

Milovan Drecun, a member of parliament from Mr Vucic’s party and chairman of the legislature’s Kosovo commission, said Serbia had made a clear choice to be part of Europe. “Russia belongs to the East and we belong to the West”, but Serbia “still needs Russia” because it opposes any recognition of Kosovo as an independent state by the United Nations.

The United States, despite its recent criticism of Kosovo, “is still 100 percent behind Kosovo,” claiming to be a state, “but needs good relations with Serbia because we are the most important country in the Balkans.”

Any positive influence Mr Vucic has received from the impact of Kosovo has been overshadowed by a tidal wave of domestic opposition.

The scale of the protests – and Mr Vucic’s failure to mobilize as many people as possible for his own pro-government rally on May 26 – has united the usually unruly opposition in disgust at the successive massacres in early May, one by a 13-year-old gunman at a posh school in Belgrade, the second by a 21-year-old in villages near the capital.

“Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I think Vucic is done,” said Dragan Bjelogrlic, one of Serbia’s best-known actors and a participant in the protests. “Formally he will not lose power immediately, but the most important thing for all autocrats is not to show that they are afraid.” Mr Vucic, he added, “looks very scared now and this is the beginning of the end.”

Mr Vucic initially denounced protesters as “scum” and “vultures”, and his media machine staged violent attacks on his detractors. On the eve of a major protest on May 19, Informer, a pro-government tabloid, published photos of six opposition politicians on its front page with the headline: “They threaten to murder and rape children.”

“The hatred and lies are constant,” said Dragan Djilas, an opposition leader who was one of the six people pictured.

Mr. Vucic has since taken on a more conciliatory tone. On Wednesday he said he would like to talk to his opponents and suggested an early election, an option opposition leaders are rejecting because the playing field is so tilted against them.

Mr Vucic also promised wage increases for teachers and health workers, and a cash payment for citizens under 16, widely seen as a bribe to keep them and their parents off the streets.