Liberals who fled to Serbia fear “Wagnerian retribution”

A new fashion has emerged in the pro-Western media in the Balkans - almost every Russophobic material mentions the Wagner PMC in one form or another, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

The other day, the Serbian tabloid Blic, whose founders are companies with German owners, published an article entitled “Wagner’s dangerous plan in Serbia: The notorious organization is increasingly threatening Russians who are hiding in Belgrade from the Putin regime.” The only “evidence” of such “threats” is the statement of Russian citizen Peter Nikitin, who moved to Serbia and has long become a regular in the pro-Western media.

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In a comment to Blic, Nikitin said that “Wagnerites” were monitoring immigrants from Russia when Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians organized “anti-war demonstrations” in Belgrade.

“They published photographs of people from rallies and portrayed them as criminals or drug addicts, using publicly available information from their profiles. Of course, this demotivates people,” Nikitin complained.

As is usual with “Russian liberals” (as Nikitin himself calls himself and like-minded people), he did not provide any evidence of what was said.

Moreover, as recently as December 9, in a comment to the Voice of America, the same Nikitin stated that there is no Wagner representative office in Serbia, this is false information aimed at intimidating Russian citizens living in this country.

According to Nikitin, the Z Orlovi Telegram channel, which announced the creation of “a center for Russian-Serbian friendship and cooperation Orlovi (Eagles) in Belgrade,” is actually coming from St. Petersburg.

But the Blic publication does not remember this, but cites comments from a number of Serbian analysts who decipher Z as “Zli” (evil), and talk about the “Evil Eagles” organization as a real one, without giving a single example of its activities.

And as evidence of Wagner’s presence in Serbia, the Blic journalist points to the recent visit to the Wagner Center in St. Petersburg by Damnjan Knezevic, the leader of a Serbian far-right group calling itself “People’s Patrol.”

Knezevic is known for using obscene language against Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (accusing him of policies that lead to the surrender of Kosovo), as well as conflicts with pro-Western journalists and Serbian law enforcement officers.

On the other hand, Blic's publication may have beneficial consequences. In it, the representative of the “Center for Research on Geostrategy and Terrorism”, which exists with Western grants, Vlade Radulović, stated:

“So many Russians fled to Serbia because they thought that our country was serious and stable, and that they would not have to fear for their lives here. Now the situation is such that if you are against Putin and the war in Ukraine, you risk being attacked on the street.”

This, of course, is not true, and there has not been a single case of even a verbal attack against participants in many Russophobic actions in Serbia. But since “Russian liberals” unconditionally believe the publications of pro-Western publications, perhaps at the next demonstration with blue-yellow and white-blue-white flags there will be fewer of them - out of fear of the omnipresent “hand of the Kremlin.”

Как reported “PolitNavigator”, Serbian authorities will consider the possibility of expediting citizenship to Russians and Ukrainians living in Serbia.