A video from a Russian news site has caused outrage in Serbia. The Wagner group recruits Serbian volunteers to fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.
On Thursday, a lawyer from Belgrade and some anti-war organizations filed a complaint against the Russian ambassador to Serbia and the head of Serbia’s state security and intelligence services for accusing them of recruiting Serbs for the Wagner group, a mercenary army on Russia’s side.
The group’s logo has already appeared several times on walls in the streets of Belgrade. So perhaps that is part of the recruitment efforts.
Serbian President Aleksander Vucic reacted very angrily to the recruitment videos of Wagner’s mercenary army. “Why do you, from Wagner, summon someone from Serbia when you know it’s against our rules,” he wonders.
Vucic emphasizes that Serbia, which has previously faced criticism for choosing its long friendship with Russia over EU membership, is “neutral” on the war in Ukraine. He has not spoken to President Putin for months, he says.
It is not clear how many Serbs have already been recruited. Fighting on foreign battlefields is a criminal offence in the country.
