Putin’s ‘Night Wolves’ are erecting a statue of Slobodan Milosevic in the centre of Moscow: What is he holding in his hand?!

In a month or so, in mid-June, a statue of former Serbian authoritarian president and Hague indictee (he was tried for war crimes but died in prison before the verdict) Slobodan Milosevic, the initiator of the devastating wars on the territory of the former Yugoslavia in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, is to be erected in the centre of Moscow on Europe Square.

This is what Marat Bashirova, a professor at the Higher School of Economics of the National Research Institute of the University of Moscow, said in an interview with the high-ranking Russian tabloid Moskovskiy Komsomolets, and the instigator of this is the well-known pro-Putin propagandist, the leader of the Night Wolves motorcycle club, Aleksandar Zaldostanov, alias the Surgeon. And Russian President Vladimir Putin is an honorary member of the motorcycle club of the regime that supports the aggression against Ukraine and advocates the implementation of the ideas of the “Russian world”, and the “Wolves” are a permanent “decoration” of pro-Putin events. The sculpture, cast in bronze in Serbia, is two metres high (Serbian portals speak of a three-metre high monument) and is the work of Belgrade academic sculptor Dragan Radenovic.

The statue depicts Milošević holding a mask which, on the one hand, resembles a character from the famous painting The Scream by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, but in reality is even more like the mask from the “youth” horror film The Scream. !? He told the Russian ultra-nationalist website Cargrad that Serbs should be ashamed that the monument will not be erected in Serbia. The monument is finished and has already been delivered to Moscow, accompanied by the Night Wolves.

In an interview with “MK”, Bashirov states that the reason for erecting the monument in Moscow is primarily that “Milosevic is the first victim of the criminal NATO”, referring to the intervention in 1999, but not mentioning that this is because of the war and the crimes committed by his regime in Kosovo, when it expelled more than 800.000 from Kosovo in a few months. It is not superfluous to recall that the current Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic, also sat in the government as Minister for Information.

Secondly, according to Zaldostanov, Serbia is still hesitating to erect this monument, so it will be ‘staged’ in Russia and then in Serbia once Russia ‘breaks the ice’. According to Bashirov, Milosevic was extradited to The Hague by “Serbian traitors”, and he “paid with his life to defend his homeland” – he was betrayed by many at the time, and kidnapped by Zoran Đinđić’s government and sent to The Hague. They could not break him, and he heroically stood his ground, accusing the US-led NATO of committing crimes against humanity. The Russians made a big mistake at the time by not defending Serbia vigorously, said Bashirov. The Russian professor believes that “for historical reasons, Serbia remains perhaps our only obvious ally and partner. Although Serbia is under constant pressure to introduce some kind of restrictions against us.

Another ally is Hungary, which is close to us because of its economic ties,” said Bashirov.

Aleksandar Zaldostanov, leader of the “Night Wolves”, claims that preparations and work on the erection of the monument are in their final stages and that it is being erected as a sign of gratitude to Milosevic, “who prophetically predicted what would happen to us”. Dragan Radevic, vice-president of the pro-Russian nationalist association “Sloboda”, says that several years ago an initiative was launched to erect a monument to Milosevic in Belgrade and to name a street or square after him. Milosevic’s war spokesman Ivica Dacic, known as Little Sloba, also predicted the construction of a monument, but the idea has recently fallen somewhat by the wayside. There is indeed a bust of Milosevic in Požarevac, where he was buried./Jutarnji.hr/