The popular narrative of a “colour revolution” attempting to overthrow the government has been recycled by Serbian officials in the midst of the ongoing widespread student-led protests. President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić is claiming, on a daily basis, that foreign influences are orchestrating the ongoing anti-government protests. The same messages were heard during this week’s meetings between Serbian government ministers and Russian officials.
According to Vučić, international organisations, such as the suspended USAID, had funded efforts to destabilise Serbia.
“And now I tell you – their colour revolution has failed. Inform USAID, NED (National Endowment for Democracy) and EED (European Endowment for Democracy). Let them all know – it is over. Serbia has won, and you will never defeat Serbia”, Vučić said, addressing his supporters at a pro-government rally organised on 15 February in Sremska Mitrovica.
In addition, addressing the people in the town of Kikinda earlier this month, Aleksandar Vučić stated that he would write a textbook entitled “How I Defeated a Colour Revolution in Serbia”. According to the President, his experience in countering the protests would serve as a model for other countries facing similar movements.
Similar narratives of “foreign meddling” have been widely used by the Serbian authorities in recent years, whenever the increasingly frequent anti-government protests occurred. The ruling party accused foreign interests of organizing the 2021 protests against a lithium-mining project by Rio Tinto company and again in 2024, when the issue of lithium resurfaced, followed by another round of mass protests.
The narratives about colour revolutions were also pushed during the anti-violence protests following the mass murders in May 2023, as well as during the post-electoral crisis in December 2023, after the snap parliamentary and local elections, marked by numerous irregularities, took place.
One narrative for domestic audiences, another for the Western?
Recently, there have also been claims that the Serbian officials are playing both sides – trying to present the protests as a “colour revolution” when they speak to the domestic audience, as well as Russian officials, whereas, in contacts with the Western politicians, they are claiming the current crisis is the result of the Russian interfering.
This issue was raised by Filip Ejdus, Professor at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade, who recently posted on X that he learned ”from diplomatic sources that the regime presents the protests in the West as Russian interference, and in the East as a colour revolution”.
Shortly afterwards, the former President of Serbia Boris Tadić also posted on X that during the recent Munich Security Conference his interlocutors conveyed to him “that representatives of the Serbian delegation were spreading information among Western politicians that Russian secret services and interests were behind the student protests in Serbia”.
Tadić condemned these claims as the “new level of attack” on the students, as well as a contradiction to the “propaganda” which is being disseminated in Serbia.
Similarly, Zdravko Ponoš, President of the opposition party Serbia Center, wrote on X that (Serbian Foreign Minister) Marko Đurić during the meetings on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference said that the protests in Serbia were orchestrated by Russians, “their intelligence services and Wagner group”.
Ponoš’s claims were “energetically denied” by Marko Đurić, who accused the opposition politicians of trying to discredit him.
Sergey Lavrov with Marko Đurić: The West is trying to destabilise Serbia
Meanwhile, Russia has weighed in on the discussion. At the joint press conference in Moscow with Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Đurić on 17 February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the Russian leadership “supports the efforts of the Serbian leadership and President Vučić to prevent destabilisation of the situation in that country.
“He (Vučić) cited specific facts of gross interference by foreign countries in Serbia’s domestic political processes. We condemn such practices and insist that the principles of non-interference in internal affairs be strictly adhered to by all, first and foremost, by our Western colleagues, who have long been trying to use publicly funded NGOs, including the USAID funds, to destabilise the situation in the countries where they want to have more influence going their way and to ignore the core interests of the peoples of the countries in question”, said Russian Foreign Minister.
In a similar vein, Marko Đurić “referred to the numerous external and internal pressures that Serbia has undergone” and thanked Lavrov “for supporting the preservation of stability in our country, which is very important for Serbia’s capacity to pursue an independent policy”.
Just a day after Lavrov and Đurić talked eye to eye, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin and Russian Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu met in Moscow, to discuss strengthening the friendly ties between their countries.
“The parties confirmed a categorical rejection of external interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The Russian side expressed readiness to continue to provide support to the brotherly people of Serbia in maintaining stability… The parties agreed to intensify inter-departmental dialogue with a view to opposing ‘colour revolutions’”, the Serbian Government stated.
In 2021, Vulin, who was then Minister of Interior, formed a “working group to combat colour revolutions” with Shoigu’s predecessor, Nikolai Patrushev. Its scope of work has remained unclear to this day.
Vuk Vuksanović: The foreign policy balancing is used by the Serbian establishment to gain internal points
Commenting on the tendency of Serbian officials to frequently use the term “colour revolution” whenever an anti-government protest is happening, Vuk Vuksanović, a Senior Researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, states for European Western Balkans that “this is an old method of the ruling establishment in Serbia, which means that the foreign policy balancing is instrumentally used to gain internal points and to ensure that key international players do not end their support for the ruling coalition”.
“During the ‘Do not let Belgrade drown’ protest in 2016, the protests were attributed to George Soros, and the following year President Vučić met with George Soros and his son Alexander. During the pandemic and the violent protests of 2020, the Russian ‘deep state’ was accused in pro-government media and tabloids of being behind the protests, when relations with Moscow were not satisfactory because Belgrade tried to turn toward Washington during Trump’s first term. In late 2023, when electoral irregularities in Belgrade triggered protests and riots in front of the City Assembly, the Serbian Government, with the help of the Russian Embassy, described it as a colour revolution”, Vuk Vuksanović recalls.
Vuk Vuksanović; Photo: Screenshot / Al Jazeera BalkansVuksanović clarifies that the term “colour revolution” is very popular in this context because, in the minds of some people in Serbia, it is “associated with disillusionment with the post-October 2000 era (after the fall of Slobodan Milošević) and a symbol for Western interference in political events in post-Soviet countries and Egypt”.
He adds Russia often helps the elites in Belgrade in this game, as was seen during the protests in late 2023, or in 2021, when in the midst of the first protests against Rio Tinto company, Aleksandar Vulin and Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of National Security of the Russian Security Council signed a memorandum on cooperation in the fight against ‘colour revolutions’.
“For Moscow, it has symbolism, since the protests that toppled Slobodan Milošević in 2000 inspired real ‘colour revolutions’ in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in the 2000s, as well as the ‘Arab Spring’ in Egypt in 2011. At the same time, for Moscow, it is also a matter of principle where they oppose anti-government protests in principle, for fear of such a scenario happening again in Russia”, Vuk Vuksanović remarks.