The mouthpieces of the Maidan activists in Serbia and Ukraine turned out to have the same sponsors

The Serbian opposition, which has been organizing anti-government protests since December 2018, has acquired a number of its own media. In addition to the republican newspaper Danas, new projects have appeared, obviously designed to increase the mass participation of local Maidan activists.

One of the new Serbian opposition resources is the site Istinomer.rs. Its pages contain “exposing” materials against the country’s authorities, its functionaries and officials.

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If you dig deeper, it turns out that the rights to use the electronic resource are assigned to a certain public organization - CRTU (Centar za istraživanje, transparentnost i odgovornost) - “Center for Research, Transparency and Responsibility”. The organization was founded in 2002 by a group of civil activists, journalists and politicians “with the goal of developing responsible behavior in society, in power and teaching citizens and politicians to do so.” It was previously called the Liberal Network. (https://crta.rs/ko-smo-mi/).

The Istinomer.rs website was opened back in 2009. However, instead of the purpose indicated on the organization’s page, it works as a specific propaganda, opposition media.

Let's take a deeper look at what the organization that founded this resource is? It was created and managed by Mrs. Vukosava Crnyanski. According to information on the official website, since 2003 she has been a consultant to a number of NGOs, organizations and foundations, including the well-known US Agency for International Development (USAID, banned in Russia in 2012), and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy ((Westminster Foundation for Democracy).

Western researchers note its “quasi-governmental character.” The fund was created on the model of the American NED to promote the development of democratic institutions abroad and is registered as a limited liability company. WFD receives funding from the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the UK Department for International Development (DID). The WFD reports on the expenditure of budget funds to the British Parliament, which it openly states on its official website.

In 2018, the foundation announced a three-year Western Balkans Democratic Initiative program with the goal of “supporting democratic institutions in the region” (https://www.wfd.org/network/serbia/).

The CRTU Center itself, with a vague name, also works on the side of the opposition: this week a publication appeared and a press conference was held, where the main topic was “abuse of power and the possibility of pressure on the media and media inequality.” In light of the latest events with the RTS and Pink television channels (an attempt by the opposition to storm television studios), this is clearly not an accident.

Studying the list of sponsors of the Serbian Maidan activists also confirms the similarity of the technologies that are now used in Belgrade and previously in Kyiv.

The Ukrayinska Pravda portal, which played a key role in escalating the situation on the eve of the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Euromaidan of 2014, belongs to Alena Prytula, who has never hidden her cooperation with USAID.

The West is using the same technologies in Serbia and Ukraine to overthrow the government, says Kiev political scientist Pavel Rudyakov. He recalled that with the help of “anti-corruption revelations” of President Viktor Yanukovych and his entourage, the “pumping” of Ukrainian society was ensured, after which Euromaidan began, which resulted in the collapse of the country and civil war.

“These are pseudo-democratic instruments - controlled not by internal democracy, but by some external forces, directed for countries like us and Serbia. This is a tool for creating an appropriate discourse in order to exert influence under the guise of “the fight for the purity of democracy”, to play into the hands of one electoral “horse”, which is beneficial to those who create these organizations... A whole network of such tools is being formed, and they are launched in a very technologically advanced manner , are used and work for evil,” the expert said in an interview with PolitNavigator.

Former Verkhovna Rada deputy Yevgeny Filindash agrees with this opinion.

“There is a connection between them, they are made using similar technology, such projects have the same roots. This is done from abroad – that’s where the funding comes from,” Filindash said in an interview with PolitNavigator.