Ahatović warns: Russia's intelligence work in Serbia under the guise of "business cooperation"

Last year, on September 10, in Saint Petersburg, during the visit of the official delegation of the city of Belgrade, headed by the then mayor Zoran Radojicic, the Agreement on cooperation between Saint Petersburg and Belgrade was signed, as well as the Action Plan for the development of the partnership for the period from 2021 to 2024. .

One of the items was the establishment of the information business center of St. Petersburg, which was opened on June 1 this year, and which is "an informal representation of the city on the territory of Serbia, designed to promote the development of business ties between St. Petersburg and Serbian entrepreneurs, as well as for the implementation of joint projects and initiatives".

Just like the Russian-Serbian humanitarian center in Niš, the sole purpose of such activities of the Russian Federation is to expand and strengthen the agency network and strengthen intelligence capacities in Europe under the guise of economic cooperation between the two cities. The Russian Federation does not even belong to the top 10 economies of the world: even one South Korea, Canada or Italy achieve a higher GDP even though they have many times less inhabitants. And that is enough reason why we can no longer consider Russia a superpower, because every other power comes primarily from the economic strength of a country - says military analyst Nedžad Ahatović.

He reminds that the Russian military budget is four times smaller than that of China and 12 times smaller than that of the USA.

- Even in energy, as its strongest trump card, Russia does not hold primacy, they are only third in terms of oil production, and second in terms of gas production. They hold somewhere up to 10 percent of the trade in oil and oil derivatives. There is nothing left for Russia but scheming, espionage, stealing patents and ideas, and creating artificial crises and wars in order to return to the ranks of major global players. Their FSB intelligence service plays a central role here, and these and similar activities are aimed at strengthening the capacity of soft power, which Russia is increasingly losing due to the war in Ukraine - concludes Ahatović.