LOGACA, Serbia (AP) – When Elena Koposova signed an open letter opposing Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, she didn’t expect the backlash in her newly adopted homeland of Serbia.
After all, she thought, Serbia aims to formally join the European Union, adopting all the democratic values that membership entails. Now she realizes she was wrong.
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Two years after signing this letter, the 54-year-old Russian woman is appealing her deportation order after she was declared a threat to Serbia’s national security and had her residence permit revoked. . The confused literary translator said the only reason she could think of was an anti-war petition she had signed.
“I’m not an activist, but I signed an anti-war letter when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was just beginning,” she said in an interview. “Even if I wasn’t an activist, I couldn’t stay silent on this issue. So I wrote my open letter saying war is a crime and we all have to come together to stop it. I put my name on it.”
Koposova is not alone. Serbia has opened its borders in recent years to tens of thousands of Russians fleeing President Vladimir Putin’s regime and the war in Ukraine. Russian pro-democracy activists in the Balkans now say at least a dozen people have recently been banned from entering Serbia or had their residence permits revoked for threatening Serbia’s security.
Russian anti-war activists say at least eight others are afraid to speak publicly about their legal issues with Serbian authorities, fearing it will only jeopardize their chances of remaining in Serbia with their families. are doing.
Koposova said the moment she received the deportation order was “very sudden and very shocking”, but the reason was not explained, only that it was a “threat to national security”. He simply declared that he had to leave the country. within 30 days.
She and her husband built a modern house on land in a remote village on the outskirts of Belgrade, where they live with their two children, ages 6 and 14, who attend a local school and preschool.
Rights activists say the residency issue points to closer ties between Serbia’s increasingly authoritarian President Aleksandar Vučić and Putin, despite Serbia’s formal membership in the EU. are doing. Vučić has refused to join Western sanctions against the traditional Slavic ally, while allowing Moscow’s propaganda outlets such as RT and Sputnik to spread the story across the Balkans.
“The authorities in Belgrade and the authorities in Moscow are politically very close,” said Predrag Petrovich, research coordinator at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, an independent think tank that has been demanding explanations from the Interior Ministry about measures against Russians. Ta.
“Those who are critical of Putin’s government pose a major threat to the regime in Moscow,” Petrovich said. “This is why these people are being targeted by the Serbian authorities.”
Serbian officials have so far not commented on the reported incidents involving Russian nationals, and the Serbian Interior Ministry has not responded to an email from The Associated Press requesting interview or comment on the matter.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine two years ago, many Russians have come to Serbia. No visa is required to enter the friendly Balkans, which could serve as a stepping stone to potential future migration to Western countries. Many avoided the draft, but others, like the Koposovas who had come before them, were simply fed up with Putin’s regime and looking for a better life elsewhere outside Russia.
Pyotr Nikitin, one of the founders of the pro-democracy Russian Democratic Association, himself lost his entry permit last summer when his entry permit was revoked, even though he has a Serbian wife and has lived in Serbia for seven years. I spent two days at Belgrade Airport. Nikitin has since been allowed to enter the country, but legal proceedings regarding his residence documents are ongoing.
“There is no doubt that this is being done on direct orders from Russia, either through the embassy or directly from Moscow,” Nikitin claimed, adding that his group is involved in protests against the war in Ukraine and It has also organized demonstrations calling for the release of political prisoners, including Navalny. , a Russian opposition leader and critic of Putin, died on February 16 in a penal colony in Russia’s Arctic.
Nikitin said other anti-war activists who faced scrutiny from Serbian authorities include Vladimir Volokhonsky, a fellow founder of the RDS group who now lives in Germany.
Also, Evgeny Irzhansky, who hosted a concert by an anti-Putin band in Serbia and later moved to Argentina with his wife, and Ilya Ilya, a young Russian who was banned from returning to Serbia after being attacked by far-right groups. Mr. Zhernov was also subject to sanctions. Serbian nationalists attempt to erase a mural calling for death to Ukraine in downtown Belgrade.
Mr. Nikitin said the purpose of these measures was to intimidate anti-war activists.
“The only explanation for that is that they want to scare everyone,” he said. “Because if you can’t sign an anti-war letter, there’s nothing you can really do. And that certainly has a chilling effect.”
“The important thing is that anti-war Russians are not protesting here against anyone in Serbia,” Nikitin said. “We are only thinking about our country and our neighbors who are currently suffering in our country.”
Close ties between Serbia and Russia date back centuries, and the two countries also share commonalities: Slavic origins and Orthodox Christianity. Russia has supported Serbia’s claims to Kosovo, a former province that declared independence in 2008 with Western support.
Serbia and Russia also maintain close cooperation between their security services.
Former Serbian national security chief Alexander Boulin, who was sanctioned by the United States for supporting Russia’s “malign” influence in the Balkans, was recently praised for the close cooperation between the two spy agencies, and was recently sanctioned by Russia’s Federal Security Secretary. Received a medal from the department. Boleyn was reportedly involved in wiretapping prominent Russian opposition activists who met in Belgrade on the eve of the Ukraine war and were later imprisoned in Russia.
For Koposova, the Serbian authorities’ decision to deport her means she and her family could lose everything if her case is rejected.
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Koposova said her family would sell all their property and could not return to Russia because they would be labeled anti-Putin and her husband could be drafted to fight in Ukraine.
“This is the only home for us and the only home for our children,” she said with tears in her eyes.
