“I cannot blame myself or anyone else. That would be very foolish. The most important thing for me is that no one got hurt,” Radosh Petrović, an investor from northern Kosovo, told Radio Free Europe regarding the incident at a construction site in Kragujevac, central Serbia.
On Friday, November 28, a retaining wall collapsed at the site, causing a portion of the access road to the building to slide into a several-meter-deep pit. Footage of the collapse quickly went viral on social media.
On December 2, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Kragujevac announced that it had ordered the police to investigate the site and take measures to “determine all relevant circumstances” and to examine the “possible existence of criminal elements, for which a criminal case could be pursued.”
Petrović spoke with Radio Free Europe, stating that no authorities had contacted him regarding the incident.
A reporter from RFE, present near the Faculty of Law and the Second High School in Kragujevac—where several new buildings and business facilities have been constructed in recent years—spoke to some workers at the site. The road leading to the Center of Excellence, a scientific complex not yet in use and designated for the University of Kragujevac, has been completely destroyed, while parts of the building’s walls stand just a few meters from the edge of a landslide. The site has been cordoned off with police tape.
On plot number 10410-17, a building constructed by Petrović’s company, “RP Invest 1980,” with six floors already completed, can be seen. However, according to Serbia’s official construction permit registry, no building permit has been issued for this location.
Records indicate that the company submitted a building permit application on November 17, 2025, which was rejected just one day before the collapse occurred at the construction site. Documentation shows that the company had previously obtained the so-called location conditions in June—a preliminary document in the permitting process that legally does not allow construction work to commence.
The incident has raised serious concerns about construction site safety and legal compliance in Serbia, highlighting the risks posed by unauthorized construction work for both workers and nearby residents.
