Enough is enough.
"Why do you, members of the Wagner group, call Serbs [to fight in Ukraine, editor's note] when you know it's illegal?".
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic did not mince his words on Monday, January 16, about attempts to recruit mercenaries from Yevgeny Prigojine, Wagner's influential boss.
Blood stroke is rare.
"Serbia is one of Russia's best friends outside the sphere of ex-Soviet countries, and Aleksandar Vucic has good relations with Moscow," said Dimitar Bechev, specialist in Balkan geopolitics at the Oxford School. of Global and Area Studies.
Wagner and the "People's Patrol"
But this time, the very populist Aleksandar Vucic did not digest a sequence broadcast shortly before on the pro-Russian channel RT Balkan.
A video there showed soldiers presented as Serbs fighting alongside the Russians in Ukraine.
"It was clever of them. They disguised a recruitment advertisement - which would have been illegal in Serbia - as a report that gave all the information necessary to join Wagner in Ukraine", details Vuk Vuksanovic, specialist in relations between Russia and Serbia at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy.
Indeed, a law prohibits Serbs from taking part in conflicts abroad.
A hardly hidden publicity which was added to other indices of the presence of the Russian mercenaries in Serbia lately.
Wagner's opening of an office in Belgrade first fueled rumors in December.
"There was talk of the creation of a shell company which, in reality, would have served this group to establish itself more solidly in Serbia. But nothing could ever be proven," explains Vuk Vuksanovic.
At the beginning of January, the emblematic skull and crossbones which is the coat of arms of the Wagner group appeared on a mural in the center of Belgrade.
This drawing was claimed by the far-right “People's Patrol” movement, suggesting that this small group represents Russian mercenaries in Serbia.
No wonder.
The “People's Patrol” had already participated in the organization of a demonstration in support of Russia shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine in March 2022. “Some of its members were also invited to Saint Petersburg in the building occupied by Wagner”, points out Vuk Vuksanovic.
The efforts of the men of Prigojine and his relays in Serbia do not seem, for the moment, to have aroused warrior vocations by the hundreds.
“The number of Serbian mercenaries fighting in Ukraine for Russia appears to be very low,” underlines Othon Anastasakis, director of the Center for Studies on South-East Europe at the University of Oxford.
Serbs still pro-Russian?
But for Aleksandar Vucic, the problem is elsewhere.
At a time when relations between Europe and Russia are at their lowest and when Belgrade is trying to appear more favorable to the European Union – the question of its membership of the European bloc has been standing still since 2013 – Serbia e has no desire to appear as a haven of peace for Wagner and a reservoir of recruits for Moscow.
“Aleksandar Vucic is upset by these Russian recruitment efforts because Wagner thus makes him and his country a target for Washington and Brussels”, notes Vuk Vuksanovic.
In an attempt to reassure the Western camp, he thus affirmed that “Crimea and Donbass are Ukrainian” in an interview granted Wednesday, January 18 to the American chain Bloomberg.
However, Moscow did not choose Serbia by chance to find recruits.
Belgrade has always managed to maintain good relations with Russia.
The country has thus repeatedly refused to support international sanctions against Russia.
“It is also the only country on the continent to which there are still flights from Moscow,” notes Othon Anastasakis.
Aleksandar Vucic also negotiated a very advantageous Russian gas delivery agreement for Serbia at the end of May 2022... even as the rest of Europe sought to reduce its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons as quickly as possible.
Above all, Russia enjoys great popularity in public opinion and the war has not changed much.
“Russia has an enormous advantage in the eyes of the Serbs: it is not the United States”, summarizes Vuk Vuksanovic.
Public opinion retains “a very bitter memory of the NATO bombardments in Serbia during the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and Russian soldiers also fought alongside the Serbs”, lists Othon Anastasakis.
Part of the Serbs have also not forgiven Washington and Europe for having recognized, in 2008, the independence of Kosovo, contested by Serbia.
The status of Kosovo is also one of the main levers of influence used by Moscow on Belgrade.
Russia is Serbia's strongest ally in the UN Security Council during discussions on Kosovo.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia did not move the lines much in Serbia.
This war is perceived mainly “as a Russian effort to shake up the international order dominated by a single country: the United States”, explains Vuk Vuksanovic.
Aleksandar Vucic caught in his own trap
The Serbian president is no stranger to this very pro-Russian vision of the conflict in Ukraine.
He allowed a media landscape to develop giving a large place to Russian propaganda.
By sometimes adopting a pro-European position on the international scene, he can thus play the role of the only bulwark in Brussels against feelings too favorable to Russia which would gain ground in his country, analyzes Vuk Vuksanovic.
He thus contributed “to making Putin a superstar in the eyes of part of the population”, estimates the expert from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy.
A strategy that seemed to have only advantages as long as Vuk Vuksanovic could play on both the European and Russian tables.
But with the war in Ukraine, this position is becoming increasingly untenable.
"Washington and Brussels hope to be able to take advantage of this conflict to pull Serbia more towards the Western camp," says Othon Anastasakis.
This would make economic sense since the EU is Serbia's biggest trading partner.
Except that Aleksander Vucic can hardly be too critical of Vladimir Putin, on pain of being repudiated by public opinion which he has helped to make more "Putinophile".
'He built his own political trap,' sums up Vuk Vuksanovic.
And that's probably another reason why the Serbian president got angry with Wagner's mercenaries.
“He has no desire for this group to establish a greater presence in Serbia”, explains Vuk Vuksanovic. For this expert, he has seen the political weight that the group can have in certain African countries where it is accused of having influenced He has no desire to have this same sword of Damocles hanging over his head, which would sign the death warrant of his policy of balancing Brussels and Moscow.
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