Serbia appoints pro-Russian politician as new spy chief

Serbia’s governing administration on Thursday appointed a pro-Russian politician as the country’s new spy chief.

Aleksandar Vulin, who formerly served as the Balkan’s point out inside minister and held the defence ministry portfolio prior to that, will turn out to be the new director of BIA, Serbia’s intelligence company, the government explained in a statement.

Vulin is deemed “Moscow’s male” inside the Serbian management. As inside minister, he visited Moscow in August, a unusual check out by a European point out official that underlined Belgrade’s decision to length alone from the West’s actions from Russia above its invasion of Ukraine.

He subsequently instructed Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov that “Serbia is the only point out in Europe that did not introduce sanctions and was not section of the anti-Russian hysteria.”

Serbia, which is formally searching for European Union membership, has for a long time been drifting away from its EU-aligned trajectory and has been leaning in the direction of conventional Slavic ally Russia, as effectively as China.

Vulin himself explained Serbia ought to discard its EU membership objective and as an alternative change to Moscow. He advocates the creation of a “Serbian Planet” — mirroring the “Russian Environment” — uniting Serbs less than one flag led by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

He has also frequently pilloried Serbia’s neighbouring states and their leaders, and has been barred from moving into Croatia, an EU member point out.

Vulin’s appointment to these kinds of a delicate intelligence write-up has subsequently outraged the country’s professional-Western opposition and is noticed as another snub to the West.

The opposition PSG get together unveiled a statement indicating that his “appointment will absolutely cease” BIA’s cooperation with Western security businesses and will add to “the more worldwide isolation of Serbia.”

It even more highlighted that Vulin “brazenly advocates professional-(Vladimir) Putin positions” and argued that the appointment renders Serbia “Russia’s only ally in Europe.”

Marinika Tepic from the opposition SSP occasion characterised the appointment as a sign that “that Serbia is heading towards dictatorship” in which “all usually means will be permitted in the battle towards political opponents.”

Past calendar year, Vulin is said to have created a “working group” with Nikolai Patrushev, the strong secretary of the Kremlin’s Stability Council, to fight “colour revolutions” — a sequence of mass protests which have often led to the overthrowing of autocratic regimes mostly in the Center East and Asia.

Serbian impartial media experienced noted that at their conference in Moscow late past year, Vulin gave Patrushev wiretaps from a Belgrade assembly held by users of the Russian opposition.

Some of the attendees had been arrested shortly after in Russia. Vulin, nevertheless, has denied handing about the tapes.