How Kremlin Propaganda Is Spreading Through Serbia

Thousands of people on Facebook and Instagram follow the page Govorit Moskva, whose content consists almost exclusively of speeches by Vladimir Putin translated into Serbian.

The page publishes the Russian president’s speeches on a daily basis, in which he justifies the invasion of Ukraine, praises the Russian military, and says that people in the West are being led toward a "spiritual catastrophe."

Serbia has become an oasis for Russian propaganda. Pro-Russian narratives are spread not only through official Russian media but also through a complex web of aggregator websites, which often serve the interests of the Serbian authorities.

The Aggregators

Russian state-funded RT and Sputnik have been sanctioned by the EU since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The EU also suspended the broadcasting of Sputnik and RT in the bloc "until the aggression against Ukraine is brought to an end and until the Russian Federation and its associated media outlets cease conducting disinformation and information manipulation against the EU and its member states."

But in November 2022, Russian state media found a port in a storm, when RT Balkan began publishing online content in Serbian. That prompted warnings from the EU, with former European Parliament rapporteur for Serbia Vladimir Bilcik writing on X that the launch of RT Balkan in Serbia was contrary to European foreign policy.