Serbia is getting closer and closer to the Russian world every day. This is proven by the recent visit of a Serbian artist to the Kremlin.
Serbian director Emir Kusturica met with Russian President Vladimir Putin a few days ago.
The Serbian director is known for his public statement in which he supports every action that Putin takes in Ukraine.
During the conversation with the Russian president, Kusturica made a comparison between what he called the Croatian ‘Ustasha’ and the Ukrainian ‘banders’, while Putin accepted without hesitation that such a comparison was legitimate and stated that Kusturica’s assessment of the events in Ukraine coincides with his assessment and that the events in Serbia and Ukraine are very similar.
“Your assessments today, including the tragic events in Ukraine and the analogy with the events in Yugoslavia during the Second World War, fully match mine. What happened then in Serbia and what is happening now between Russia and Ukraine – the glorification, the raising on the pedestal of the fascist elements of the past, giving them a new life today – are very similar phenomena,” said the Russian president.
Kusturica went to ask for money from Putin
Srecko Djukic, a member of the Forum for International Relations, says that Kusturica was connected to Moscow “for reasons known to him”, but that he gained fame in the SFRY and the West – not in the USSR.
“So, precisely for the denial of Soviet socialism. If it is true that both Putin and Kusturica agreed that the events in Serbia and Ukraine are very similar and that we in the Republic of Serbia are facing a dark war, we can only guess who will attack us. and who will attack us”, he says.
They, adds Djukic, remained undefined when it comes to who in Serbia is promoting it and looking down on the vampirized “fascist elements” in Serbia and who is rehabilitating them.
As Djukic says, “it is important that anti-fascism suffered in Serbia together with Russia, at least in it”.
“However, Kusturica came to Putin’s representative cabinet in the Kremlin to ask for money to finish his career with a new movie.” But as Andrei Kolesnikov from “Kommersant” wrote (and he is a journalist from the Kremlin pool and a journalist trusted by Putin), Putin did not even mention the money,” Djukic notes.
Putin created a new totalitarianism of the 21st century
Boris Varga, a political scientist and journalist, says that Putin has no choice but to convince the whole world of the correctness of his actions with “brutal propaganda and fake news”.
“Building the “Russian world”, he obsessively interprets everywhere his version of history, his personal struggle against fascism, offering in these new complex international relations an hourly vision of the world. Thanks to that war against “fascism” and “denazification”, and for him it is clearly a war against the West, Putin created a new totalitarianism of the 21st century”, notes Varga.
However, he says, there are few global fighters for justice who believe in the Russian Tsar, while his hands are bloody from Ukraine.
“There are also those who fell into the trap of the Russian intelligence from perhaps sincere but naive beliefs like Snoëden. But there are mostly those who, for purely profit and financial reasons, accepted that kind of reality and agreed to be in the court of the new bloody emperor. We will find out where Emir Kusturica is”, emphasizes Varga.
Varga emphasizes that “it is certain that Kusturica sees free-thinking and creative Russians fleeing Russia for the first time in history,” who, as he says, began to be persecuted and eliminated by Putin even before the war in Ukraine.
“Even the so-called “Global South”, on whose behalf Putin often tries to speak, is aware of the disastrous policy of the Russian president, but the same countries consider it useful”, says our interlocutor.
Unfortunately, he adds, the dominant narrative in the Serbian media is that an extension of NATO aggression is taking place in Ukraine, against which Russia is “only defending itself.”
“Due to not confronting the recent past, the crimes committed in the name of the great Serbian idea in the wars of the 90s and the disappointment of defeat, such an interpretation will be present in the public media and the political discourse of Serbia for another time”, says Varga and adds that for this reason, “the Serbian audience will be fertile ground for Russian war propaganda and Serbian society in conflict with the West”.
Earlier, the Serbian director publicly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to him, this was a necessary measure in response to the “aggression of the West”, which aims to “wipe the Russians off the map”.
“This is a war of the Russian-speaking population of Donbass, Luhansk and Crimea, who did not want to stay with Ukraine, which is hostile to them. And in February of this year, Russia practically wanted to end the Kiev tragedy. going on for eight years, or rather since 2014. And this was not a Ukrainian decision, but an American one. “Kiev just obeyed, bringing most of its armed forces to Donbas,” said Kusturica.
