Putin is banking on his friends in the Balkans to help sustain his bloody war in Ukraine

Graffiti in Belgrade, Serbia, reads ‘I love Russia’ and ‘Putin = Führer’. Photograph: Darko Vojinović/AP

I work at the investigative journalism website Bellingcat, where I lead our project using open-source research methods to monitor the far right across central and eastern Europe. In the Balkans, we’re seeing how Serbia’s far-right fringes are bolstering Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine. These groups aren’t just helping fan the flames in support of Russia’s war; they’re also receiving Russian help to push their own dangerous agenda in an already fractious part of Europe.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on, the Kremlin has some of the most disruptive and dangerous far-right forces in the Balkans on its side. In April 2022, thousands of Serbs took to the streets of Belgrade to protest against their government’s support for the suspension of Russia from the United Nations Human rights council because of its invasion of Ukraine. At the rally, marchers waved Russian and Serbian flags and chanted slogans such as: “Serbs and Russians – brothers for ever!”