DISINFO: The West to Serbia: either join the sanctions against Russia, or face a coup
SUMMARY
The West tried to put Serbia before two options: either join the sanctions against Russia, or face an internal coup.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative framing popular protests as Western-backed protests, part of a campaign with the objective of protraying both the mobilisations in Serbia as a destabilisation effort orchestrated from abroad. No evidence is provided to support the allegations.
The recent protests Serbia took place as a reaction to reported electoral violations in the recent parliamentary and local elections in December 2023 which was won by the governing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). An international monitoring mission noted "the misuse of public resources, the lack of separation between the official functions and campaign activities, and intimidation and pressure on voters, including cases of vote buying".
Reinhold Lopatka, the leader of the OSCE observer mission said: “while the elections were technically well-organized, they unfolded in the midst of a socially and politically divided landscape. The decisive involvement of the President dominated the electoral process, and the use of his name by one of the candidate lists, together with bias in the media, contributed to an uneven playing field".
See similar cases: the West wants to destabilise Kazakhstan to open a second front against Russia; the West plans to destabilise Central Asia; that the US is preparing a Maidan in Georgia; Euromaidan was a foreign-sponsored violent coup; and Euromaidan was a coup by radicals.