Belgrade and Moscow are 'in touch' over the protest against lithium in Serbia

The European Union (EU) has told Serbia that maintaining ties with Russia at the time of aggression against Ukraine is not compatible with the values of the Union and the accession process.

The reaction of Brussels followed after the Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin met with Kremlin officials in Moscow and "thanked the Russian security structures for the warning about the preparation of mass riots and attempted coup d'état" in Serbia.
The authorities call the protests against lithium mining, which brought tens of thousands of people to the streets in Belgrade and other cities in recent weeks, an "attempted coup d'état".
"The European Union has been crystal clear with our partners: relations with Russia cannot be normal after Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine," it said in a response to Radio Free Europe (RSE) on August 15.
In Brussels, they also state that the EU "wants to count on all candidate countries as reliable European partners for common principles, values, security and prosperity".
Meanwhile, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić accuses unnamed Western countries of being behind the demonstrations against lithium mining.
Before the Belgrade protest on August 11, Vučić also stated that warnings from Russian services had arrived in Serbia "that mass riots are being prepared, the ultimate goal of which is a coup d'état and the overthrow of the country's leadership."
The protest passed without major incidents. After the blockade of one of the railway stations in the city, three activists were arrested, who were accused of violating public order and peace. They were released to defend themselves. The organizers described these arrests as a form of government repression.
What is behind the accusations that the West supports the protests?
The Government of Serbia and the Security and Information Agency (BIA) did not answer RFE's questions about what information Russian services provided to Belgrade.
The question on the basis of which evidence claims that the anti-lithium protests are an attempt to overthrow the government and that Western countries support them is also unanswered.
"It's nonsense," Daniel Serwer, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, says for Radio Free Europe.

"The West supports both Vučić and lithium mining, which the protesters want to stop," he adds.

The reason for mass protests is the announcement of the opening of a lithium mine by the international company "Rio Tinto" in the valley of the Jadar river in the west of the country - due to the fear of some citizens that the project could have negative consequences for the environment.

The lithium mining project in Serbia was supported by the United States and the European Union, and in the presence of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Serbia signed a Memorandum on Critical Raw Materials with the EU on July 19 in Belgrade.
The document envisages the entire production chain - from the mining of lithium in "Rio Tinto's" mine in Jadar, to the production of batteries for electric vehicles.
"The idea that they (the West) will overthrow the government, which is their central partner in that project, is very difficult to accept," emphasizes Vuk Vuksanović from the non-governmental Belgrade Center for Security Policy
Support for lithium mining in Serbia is also given by the government, led by the Serbian Progressive Party, which in recent months has taken several steps to get the green light for Rio Tinto's project.
And Vučić's mention of Russian services and accusations against the West are, according to Vuk Vuksanović, "an integral part of the communication strategy" in order to discredit the protests.
"I would say that Russia's main function in this case is to appeal to Moscow, to profit from its popularity among voters and thus try to discredit critics of the government," he adds.

Why did Russia 'interfere'?
And from the Kremlin, with which official Belgrade did not break close relations after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, came public accusations that Western countries are encouraging protests against lithium.
The spokeswoman for the Russian foreign minister, Maria Zakharova, assessed on August 9 that the analysis of the situation in Serbia "indicates repeated attempts by certain malicious forces to activate the known destructive arsenal with the aim of undermining" the government.
Zaharova states that "this is a notorious scheme, which has been used repeatedly by Western ideologues of democracy and their local servants in the Balkans, as well as in other regions".

As Professor Danijel Server points out, the goal of the Kremlin's interference is to "undermine the West and invest in Vučić".
"Russian 'support' is just another proof of their (Serbian and Russian authorities') collusion in opposing Western influence. There is nothing new in Serbian openness to Russian lies," he adds.
According to Vuk Vuksanović, Moscow "gladly accepted" to help promote the government in Serbia and discredit its critics.
"Because it is a way for them to continue to be somehow present in Serbia and the Balkans, given that their influence in that area has significantly decreased since the war in Ukraine," he explains.
"And that corresponds to their international narrative, when they try to present themselves as a 'power that opposes the interventionist hegemony of the West,'" adds Vuksanović.

The organizers of the protest deny Vučić
Vučić's claims about the support of foreign services for the protests and the "attempt to overthrow the government" in Belgrade are denied by the organizers.
Nebojša Petković from the association "Ne damo Jadar" from Gornji Nedeljice, the village where the "Rio Tinto" mine is planned, points out that they are not financed by foreigners but by the "people of Serbia" who pay them donations.
That association was among the organizers of the protest in Belgrade on August 11.
"Let Vučić say which are the Western services that are destroying him, which are the associations and who finances us. This is the mantra with which he deceives the people, he does it on purpose. With him, everything is 'individuals' and 'some'. Let him come out precisely and clearly who is it about," adds Petković.
He emphasizes that the intention of the protest organizers is not to cause a coup d'état and unrest in the streets.
"Government changes in elections, if anyone expected to come to power through our backs, they were mistaken. The goal of the protest is to gather the people and for the world to see how many people are against the lithium mining project," he concluded.

Comparisons with Maidan
Environmental protests in Serbia are compared among representatives of the authorities in Belgrade and Moscow to the Maidan - demonstrations in Kiev, after which the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown.
Euromaidan, or Maidan, began in November 2013, when demonstrators gathered in the main square of Kyiv to protest the decision of then-president Viktor Yanukovych not to sign a key trade deal with the European Union.
Instead, he sought closer economic ties with Russia.
After hundreds of protesters in Kiev were killed in clashes with government forces on February 18 and 20, 2014, Yanukovych and most of his government fled to Russia.
Moscow then began its occupation of Ukraine's Crimea and fueled a deadly separatist conflict in parts of Ukraine's two eastern regions.
This is not the first time that the government, led by the Serbian Progressive Party, has compared protests to Maidan.
The same thing happened after the December protests of the opposition, which the government then accused of election theft.
Comparisons of the protest with the Maidan, according to professor Daniel Server, "only show bad taste and fear".
As he points out, both the Kremlin and Vučić's government are "afraid of popular protests."
"It (the protest) signifies their lack of legitimacy," Server explains.

Vulin in Moscow
Three days after the mass protest in Belgrade, the topic of the meeting of Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Vulin with the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Sergei Shoigu in Moscow was "the active participation of external forces in artificially provoking tension".
Vulin, as announced by the Government, then thanked the Russian security structures for the warnings "about the attempted coup d'état".
This was Vulin's second visit to Russia since he became the Deputy Prime Minister at the beginning of May.

Before this position, Vulin was the first man of the intelligence agency of Serbia. He resigned from the head of the BIA a few months after he was placed under US sanctions in July 2023 - among other things, because of his close ties to the Kremlin.
"Vulin was obviously appointed to be the contact person for Moscow and non-Western capitals. It is also a way for politicians like Vulin to remain relevant in the ruling coalition," assesses Vuk Vuksanović from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy.
Vuksanović believes that cooperation between the Russian and Serbian intelligence sectors continued after the invasion of Ukraine, and that the Kremlin "most likely seeks counter-favors, such as pressure on Russian anti-war activists" to support the authorities in Serbia.
The cancellation of hospitality to Russian anti-war activists in Belgrade began in the summer of 2023, while Vulin was the head of the security agency.
Several Russian citizens, who came to Serbia after the start of the war in Ukraine as opponents of Putin's regime, were ordered to leave Serbia on the grounds that they were a "security threat".
Vulin's close ties with the top of the Russian security and intelligence sector were also confirmed by the medal he received from the Federal Security Service, as well as from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During his visits to Moscow, he regularly points out that Serbia will not impose sanctions on the Kremlin, which the European Union has been urging it to do since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Vulin went to Moscow two months before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine and while its troops were on the border with that country.
Then, from the position of Minister of Police, he promised the then chief Russian security guard, Nikolai Patrushev, that Serbia "will never be part of the space for launching a campaign" against Russia and Vladimir Putin.
At that meeting, it was also stated that free countries must resist "color revolutions".
Color revolution is the name used for the overthrow of authoritarian regimes, as was the case in Ukraine in 2004/5. That event is known as the Orange Revolution.
Due to his contacts with Patrushev, Russian opposition member Vladimir Kara-Murza accused Vulin at the end of 2021 of taking to Moscow recordings of a meeting of Russian opposition members in Belgrade, after which one of them was arrested in Russia.
Vulin denied those claims and announced a lawsuit against Kara-Murza, but it is not known whether he actually sued Kara-Murza.

Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Russia for "high treason", spreading "false information" about the Russian army and illegal work for an "undesirable" organization.
He was released from a Russian prison on August 1, in the largest prisoner swap between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.