Tanjug News Agency
April 19, 2022

“We will not participate in anti-Russian hysteria”

Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin pointed out that Serbia is the only country in Europe that has not imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation.

He said that Serbia, headed by President Aleksandar Vucic, would not join the anti-Russian hysteria.

Vulin emphasized that Russia stood by Serbia in key historical moments and that Serbia is an independent state that does not give up its centuries-old friends.

“All enemies of Serbia are always trying to use the opportunity when Russia is far away and busy with its problems. In key historical moments, Russia stood by Serbia, as well as in 2015, when Great Britain wanted to pass a resolution that Serbs are genocidal. After the two world wars, after the burning of the churches full of children in Macva in 1914 and after Jasenovac, you want to declare the Serbs a genocidal people,” Vulin stressed.

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“More than the conflict in Ukraine, I am worried about the hatred towards the Russians. This did not start 50 days ago, this hatred was obviously carefully, carefully, nurtured, built and liberated. Now it has been released”, he stressed.

He adds that it is allowed to call for the death of a Russian on one of the social networks, maybe Facebook. “If it is allowed to ask for it, is it allowed to ask for the rape of Russian children? What will happen when a Russian child is raped, killed, beaten in one of the great democratic centers of the West, because he/she is a Russian child? Will that person be found guilty? Maybe not?”, he says.

According to him, if anyone knows what hatred is, Serbs know. “Our children were expelled from restaurants, from schools around the world, because they are Serbian children. They banned us from travelling, they banned us to live, to breathe, to work, because we are Serbs. Now they are doing it to Russians. I cannot be a part of that. You know, I’m a Serb, and Serbs know what Racak is, Serbs know what Markale is, Serbs know what Vase Miskina is, Serbs know how many times blood has been planted on their hands,” Vulin said.

He reiterated his position that he would not be part of the anti-Russian hysteria and that every anti-Russian hysteria is ultimately anti-Serbian hysteria.

“I will not participate in anti-Russian hysteria because every anti-Russian hysteria is ultimately anti-Serbian hysteria. Every hatred towards Slavs also applies to Serbs. I simply do not want to participate in that. If my only criterion is love for the European Union and hatred for Russia, let me tell you right away, I don’t have a shred of hatred towards Russia and I have no sentiments towards the European Union,” Vulin concluded.

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Tanjug News Agency
April 19, 2022

Vulin: Serbia a target of hybrid war

Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said on Tuesday Serbia was a target of hybrid war due to its independent policy.

“Serbia is a target of hybrid war because it has an independent policy and because we have not imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation and will not do so,” Vulin said in an appearance on Happy TV.

Asked to comment on security threats and pressure on Serbia through a series of bomb alerts in the country, Vulin said:

“They are punishing us that way. We have information on who is behind those attacks.”

Following a recent string of hoax bomb alerts targeting the Belgrade airport and Air Serbia flights to Russia, four Serbian shopping malls – three in Belgrade and one in Nis – were evacuated on Monday after bomb alerts that later turned out to be false.

“The result is serious economic damage. There is an economic war going on against us,” Vulin said, announcing that the police would take preventive action more frequently in the future and inspect shopping malls before opening hours.

He said the alerts had come from EU territory, from Ukraine and, most recently, from Switzerland.

“The latest attack came from a server based in Switzerland,” he said.

Serbia is a safe and secure country, Vulin said.

“In this sea of instability, Serbia is an island of stability,” he said.

In a statement late on Monday, Serbian police said all the bomb alerts targeting the shopping malls had been sent from an email address associated with the Switzerland-based email service Protonmail, and noted that the same service had previously been used to send bomb alerts that targeted Air Serbia and the Nikola Tesla Airport.

Those alerts came from Ukraine and another European country, the police said.