Reuters and AFP – March 5, 2022
Thousands of Serbs waving Russian flags and carrying pictures of President Vladimir Putin marched through Belgrade to the Russian embassy on Friday (5 February) in a show of public support for Moscow after it invaded Ukraine.
Serbia is performing a delicate balancing act between its European aspirations, partnership with NATO and its centuries-old religious, ethnic and political alliance with Russia.
For many ordinary Serbs, the memory of NATO’s bombing of strategic targets in Serbia to bring an end to the bloody Kosovo war is still all too fresh, an action that Russia vehemently opposed at the UN Security Council.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, facing an election next month in which he needs to retain the support of Russian-leaning citizens, has in recent days also repeatedly pointed to Moscow’s long-time backing in the United Nations where it has refused to recognise the independence of Kosovo, insisting it is a part of Serbia.
“Mother Russia will win.”
Some 4,000 people joined the march after gathering in front of a monument of Russian Tsar Nicholas II in central Belgrade, where they played Russian and Serbian anthems, hailed the two countries as brethren nations, and chanted anti-NATO slogans.
“This is about saving mankind,” said an elderly man carrying a Russian flag. “This is a struggle between good and bad, and we know, thank God, that Mother Russia will win.”
A younger man wearing a cap with a red star symbol said he came to support Russia in everything it does.
“This is the only right thing to do,” he said.
Nikola Babic, a 22-year-old security guard, told AFP, “Ukraine is being liberated from neo-Nazis. Russians — our brothers — are liberating the country, and hopefully the world.”
Among the protesters were also local members of Russia’s “Night Wolves” motorcycle club, known to have close ties to Putin and with a history of fighting in Ukraine on the side of pro-Russian separatists during the 2014 Crimea crisis and war over the Donbas region.
The political views of many in Serbia are influenced by tabloids close to Vucic, which have echoed Moscow’s sentiment of the war in Ukraine. One carried the headline ‘Ukraine attacked Russia!’ on the first day of the invasion.
But there is also support for Ukraine, with dozens protesting Russia’s invasion in front of its embassy earlier this week and more events expected over the weekend.
Russia calls its actions a ‘special operation’ designed not to occupy territory but to destroy its neighbour’s military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists. The government has banned media from using the word “invasion” when referring to their actions.
Many protesters carried placards with the letter Z on them – the symbol that has been seen on Russian tanks in Ukraine.
Earlier on Friday, Vucic told Ukraine’s ambassador in Serbia that Belgrade respects international law and the territorial integrity of Ukraine and that it stands ready to provide humanitarian aid and accept refugees.
Serbia, which relies on Moscow for its energy needs, also joined the UN General Assembly’s condemnation of Russia’s attack but has repeatedly refused to introduce sanctions against Moscow.
Vucic has said the country is coming under intense pressure to harmonise its foreign policy with the European Union, which it aims to join.
The country’s flag carrier Air Serbia even increased its flights to Russia when the EU and other Western Balkan countries have banned Russian planes from its airspace.
Vucic has successfully juggled Serbia’s relations with eastern and western powers for years, scoring substantial financial aid from the European Union alongside significant business deals with China and arms deals with Russia.
Critics and rights groups have accused Vucic of eroding democracy, including curbing media freedoms and undermining institutions in a similar manner to Moscow.
Russia has historically, always let down Serbia, every time they needed them. The centuries long affiliation and diplomatic support is understandable. But so it was with Fance too, and they bombed them with their rafale.
Please Truthseeker, do not sell what hey did in Bosnia (and what they are still doing), for the pretext of NATO bombings and their loss of Kosovo!
Be the Trutseeker as you alway were, and stop pussyfooting around your preferiti in the Balkans. Show the other side of the coin too. Like you always did before! Thanks
“This is about saving mankind,” said an elderly man carrying a Russian flag. “This is a struggle between good and bad, and we know, thank God, that Mother Russia will win.”
In 1917 Satan & his minions created the USSR to advance the NWO…it is now 2022 & God is using Orthodox Russia to destroy the NWO.
WELL DONE !
Clinton and Blair bombed old Yugoslavia-Albania in the years soon after the collapse of communism, so the Soviets were in no position to help or they probably would have tried to maintain the pro-communist Balkan bloc Tito created after WWII. It was said Clinton and Blair attacked because it was the last place in Europe owned mainly by the state and people, and virtually the whole country, about 97%, was privatised. This included things like brick factories, and the only bits not sold to pirates were the things they couldn’t make money from, such as bridges (for tolls) where another bridge or route could be taken. \It was grand theft with a few sums handed over to make it all appear “legal”.
Now that a renewed Russia is able to help allies and especially so next door, western propaganda outfits aka the media are saying Ukraine is putting up a valiant fight. But that will have to change soon, when news come out that the place was taken with a lot of its infrastructure still intact, with questions asked about why Russia was able to take Ukraine without bombing it back to the stone age like the US likes to its victims. Then we’ll hear how the Ukrainians were overpowered by a brute force which didn’t need to fight; it could have just walked in but chose not to, instead needlessly killing the people there etc etc.
Mosestein: How easily manipulated the goyim are. Believing that Russia, a nation led by some yarmulke wearing Chabad Lubavitch agent, whose entire economy is owned & managed by a cabal of Jewish Russian Oligarchs is somehow on their side…
Mongrelberg: Its still a Judeo-Communist State, simply masquerading as a ‘democracy’ like the USA, Britain or Canada.. The same guy has been President for the last 20 years in rigged elections.
Mosestein: Of course, Communism is just another word for total Jewish State control.
It is quite sad when you realize how many people are still brainwashed from 90s about this small but brave nation…
The Srebrenica Massacre was a Gigantic Political Fraud
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-srebrenica-massacre-was-a-gigantic-political-fraud/5321388
Kosovo War at 20: How Britain and America Backed Jihadists Throughout Conflict
https://www.globalresearch.ca/kosovo-war-how-britain-america-backed-jihadists-throughout-conflict/5672887
Rape camps, acid mines, refrigerated dead body trucks. Propaganda and Lies from the lockstep M$M fifth column to this very day, lying even as US-NATO dropped cluster bombs on them. nuff said..
Its a working man I am. Jeff Ward. Give thank to God for every mercy. And gird up your loins for the dark Prince and his minions. The time of reckoning is nigh.
One of the Pink Panther robbers from Serbia told me in 2008 that what happened in Serbia was a Beta test for the rest of Europe. He told me Europe is to be flooded with military aged fighting males, from Muslim countries! I disagreed, but he was right. He also said do not think it’s over in Serbia. We will take it back.
What the Jewnited States, Jew-K, and a demonic NATO did to Serbia was grossly immoral, an international war crime, and utterly despicable, just like what those satanic scumbags did to Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and on and on.
The more Russian Russia of now was partly inspired by Serbians leading the way after the break-up of Yugoslavia. I heard Russians say “We need to be like Serbia” (with some Slavic nationalism).