Throughout 2024, Kosovo, Ukraine, and the West remained targets of orchestrated disinformation from Serbia and Russia. In the case of Kosovo, the central disinformation narrative focused on creating the perception that Serbs in Kosovo are persecuted, arrested, and tortured.
These disinformation efforts were advanced both by the government in Belgrade and in Moscow, the latter of which mostly utilized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile, similar narratives from Russian and Serbian institutions were echoed by the state-controlled propaganda media in both countries.
Similarly, disinformation regarding the war in Ukraine has been spread by tabloids in both Russia and Serbia. In this context, the West has been portrayed as the instigator of the conflict there and as a supporter of the “ethnic cleansing” of Serbs in Kosovo.
Serbia has frequently targeted northern Kosovo, trying to present the situation as if the Kosovo Police is terrorizing the Serb population. Recently, Serbia’s government used Kosovo Police interventions to shut down several facilities misusing citizens’ and businesses’ funds as a claim of “terror and brutality” against Serbs in Kosovo. They also spread false claims that Serb properties in northern Kosovo are being illegally confiscated. During the police operation, no one was harmed or attacked as alleged by the Serbian government.
Serbian Government Disinforms: Drastic and Brutal Terror Against Serbs in Kosovo – The Geopost
The Serbian narrative of an attack on Kosovo’s vital infrastructure in the Ibar-Lepenc in late November was also amplified by the Russian ambassador in Belgrade, Aleksandr Bocan-Kharchenko. Without any evidence, the Russian ambassador supported the narrative promoted by the Serbian prime minister and president, Aleksandar Vučić, citing his statement that “Serbia has no connection with the explosion near Zubin Potok,” adding that he was not surprised by the “terrorist acts against Serbs” living in northern Kosovo. These comments were made to RT Balkan, a media outlet that serves this Serbian-Russian propaganda mission.
The Kosovo Police later showed evidence collected at the scene of the Ibar-Lepenc attack, stating that the weapons found were remnants of the Banjska assault, and numerous Serbian symbols were also discovered.
In addition to the institutions, media, and public figures, disinformation has also come from the Serbian Church.
The Russian Patriarch Kirill sent a letter to the Serbian Patriarch Porfirije, spreading disinformation about an artistic performance in Ulpiana.
“I was deeply saddened to learn of the blasphemy recently committed by Kosovo Albanians in the ruins of ancient Ulpiana,” he wrote. “The composition of three crosses, reminiscent of events from the story of the saints on Golgotha, was publicly burned in a free performance at a local festival,” he had said.
The truth was that an artistic performance had taken place in Ulpiana that had no religious connotation whatsoever. The festival organizers explained that it was an artistic performance in honour of Saints Florus and Lavra, early Christian martyrs, and that it was not an attack on the Christian faith or Christian symbols. In her opinion, the show was conceived as an act highlighting universal themes such as sacrifice and faith, and not as a religious desecration.
Kirill’s comparison of the performance to “attempts to de-Christianize Serbian land” aims to paint a picture of Kosovo as a place where the Serbian Orthodox community is systematically attacked.
The Russian Patriarch disinforms about the artistic performance in Ulpiana – The Geopost
One of the most common pieces of disinformation spread by Russia is the comparison of Kosovo with the territories it occupies from Ukraine and the NATO intervention in Kosovo.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had manipulated facts about NATO’s intervention in the Kosovo war.
“The tragic experience of the Serbian people teaches us how to fight for national dignity.” With this very notion, the NATO and US leadership targeted civilian and military institutions in Yugoslavia, whose leadership, in order to preserve the country, had to fight for what has always been important to them. “The Serbian leadership has no intention of following the policies of Western countries. It has no intention of opening a new chapter in NATO aggression and is determined not to forget the war crime committed against Yugoslavia in 1999.” This is one of the most frequent statements Zakharova makes about NATO’s intervention, which demonstrably stopped the ethnic cleansing that Serbia carried out in Kosovo. At the same time, she spreads the disinformation that NATO had civilian targets in its sights.
Zakharova manipulates the facts about the NATO intervention in Kosovo – The Geopost
In another piece of disinformation, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman claimed that the West was allegedly planning to destabilize the situation in Serbia, where students protested for days after the collapse of the train station roof.
“Western countries are developing plans to destabilize the situation in Serbia. They are using mechanisms inspired by ‘color revolutions’ and exerting pressure on the country’s legitimate authorities,” she said.
The claims of Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova are a continuation of the Russian narrative aimed at portraying the West as an obstacle and cause of the problems in Serbia through disinformation.
It is not true that the West is involved in the protests in the Serbian state. Because the West supports the right to express oneself through protests.
The reason for the protests in Serbia is the tragedy in Novi Sad, where demonstrators are demanding justice for the work at the railroad station.
Zakharova disinforms: The West is planning to destabilize the situation in Serbia – The Geopost
Another piece of disinformation came from the nationalist Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin. He had spread the false information that the European Union supported the creation of a “Greater Albania” and also that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama had said that Kosovo should join the EU as part of Albania.
The European Union and the West have never supported the concept of a “Greater Albania”, but advocate preserving the territorial integrity of all Western Balkan countries, including Albania and Kosovo. Rama had meanwhile declared that Albania supported Kosovo’s aspirations to join the EU as an independent and sovereign country.
Vulin misinforms: Greater Albania is a project of the European Union and the West – The Geopost
In order to cover up his close relations with Russia, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić gave the false information during the Globsec conference in Prague on August 31 that he had not met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin since the war in Ukraine.
However, this was quickly denied, as it was publicly known that Vučić and Putin had had a brief conversation in October 2023 and that Vučić himself had reported on this meeting at the time.
Disinformation about the war in Ukraine came from Igor Nikulin, a Russian military expert and former member of the UN Biological Weapons Commission. He spread the false report that there were dozens of Western biolaboratories near the Russian border that were waging an undeclared biological war against Russia and its allies.
However, this was completely untrue, as the laboratories referred to by the Russian authorities are in fact laboratories that have various systems for filtering air, gases, chemicals and water before they are released into the environment. They also concern the cooperation between the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and German experts from the BNITM, the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, with the aim of improving the monitoring and diagnosis of diseases such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.
Recently, new disinformation came out of Russia targeting France and attacking it for its support for Ukraine since the Russian aggression.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov falsely stated that France had tried to start a “dialog” with Moscow about Ukraine, but without Kiev’s involvement. However, this claim was immediately rejected by Paris. A French diplomatic source told AFP: “The Russian authorities are used to making intemperate comments aimed at exploiting a war of aggression for which they bear full responsibility.” “As France has repeatedly emphasized since the beginning of the war, it is up to Ukraine, the country under attack, to determine the time and conditions under which it wishes to enter into a negotiation process.”
Russia’s attempt to portray the West as the instigator of the escalation is also supported by the Russian Church. Such disinformation was also spread by the portal Sputnik Serbia, which used statements by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Kirill, to justify Russian aggression against Ukraine and to portray the West as the main enemy of Russia’s “spiritual identity”. .
“The Western world is constantly provoking an escalation that threatens to develop into a direct conflict between the two worlds. “The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which is constantly fueled by external forces, is the biggest external threat to the Russian world,” he said.
Sputnik reported this without any critical scrutiny, reinforcing the propaganda narrative of a holy war against the West. However, the West has proven time and again through numerous sanctions against Russia and its supporters of the war in Ukraine that it has tried to stop Russian aggression in Ukraine. At the same time, it has repeatedly declared that this aggression must come to an end.
/The Geopost
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Serbian Government Disinforms: Drastic and Brutal Terror Against Serbs in Kosovo