The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
In pro-putin Serbia, liberal-minded Russians seek a home
At a central square in Serbia’s capital of Belgrade, dozens of Russians gathered recently to denounce President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, holding up photos of political prisoners from their homeland.
Across the plaza, a billboard touts the Russian propaganda outlet RT, which has launched an online news portal in the country but is banned elsewhere in Europe. Heroic portraits of a bare-chested Putin adorn souvenir T-shirts and coffee mugs, or are painted on city walls.
These conflicting images reflect the complex and delicate relationship these days between Russia and Serbia.
The Slavic country is Moscow’s closest ally in Europe, with historic, religious and cultural ties that are bolstered by Kremlin political influence campaigns. Russia backs Serbia’s claim over its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 with Western support. And Serbia has refused to impose sanctions on Moscow over the invasion.
At the same time, Serbia wants to join the European Union. Populist President Aleksandar Vucic has denounced the invasion, and about 200,000 Russians have flooded into the country in the past year, with many seeking a new life in a brotherly land free of Kremlin oppression.
“Here in Belgrade, we are not perceived with hostility, and that means a lot,” said Anastasia Demidova, who arrived in the Balkan nation from Moscow three months ago.
“I’ve been talking to a lot of Serbian people here and other foreigners. When they ask me ‘what are you doing here,’ I say: ‘We are against Putin and for a democratic Russia and we are against the war in Ukraine, obviously,’” she told The Associated Press.
Others say they fled to avoid being drafted or because Western sanctions crippled their businesses or took away their jobs.
As a result, Russian can be heard spoken everywhere in Belgrade, a city of about 2 million. Russian-owned restaurants and bars have sprouted. Private Russian enterprises have mushroomed, especially in the IT sector. The influx has sent the price of real estate soaring.
This reminds some here of the wave of Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and many of those who stayed in Serbia left their mark on its culture and art.
These modern Russians, however, are maintaining links to their homeland, including financial ties, said historian Aleksej Timofejev. Unlike their predecessors, he said, they can’t go onward to the West because of the sanctions and still need visas to travel to richer countries in Europe.
“They did not choose this country but came here because it is the only one that would have them,” Timofejev added.
The newcomers say they can still feel Moscow’s heavyhanded influence, especially when it comes to Serbians’ approval for Putin, via media outlets like RT.
Russian activist Petar Nikitin calls it a “coordinated propaganda effort.”
Nikitin first came to Serbia in the early 2000s. Back then, “this admiration for the Russian government was a lot more marginal ... and I saw it grow exponentially,” he said.
Russians “who recently arrived, who didn’t know much about Serbia before, yes, many