Serbia Defies EU to Honor War Criminal Mladic — SkimNews
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- Ratko Mladic's body lay in state at Belgrade's Church of St. Luke as thousands of mourners arrived early; his military officer's cap and saber rested on the coffin, flanked by men in fatigues, and Patriarch Porfirije led the funeral service.
- Mladic died at 84 on Aug. 27 in The Hague while serving a life sentence imposed in 2017 for orchestrating the Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys, the yearslong siege of Sarajevo, and running concentration camps for non-Serb civilians.
- Serbia's government sent a military plane to bring Mladic's remains to Belgrade, and soldiers carried his coffin wrapped in the national flag at an official military commemoration on Saturday.
- The EU said any glorification of war criminals contradicts European values and 'have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries'; enlargement commissioner Marta Kos canceled an upcoming visit to Serbia in protest.
- The Mothers of Srebrenica called the funeral 'the biggest fascist gathering in Europe in the last 70 years,' saying 'the glorification of genocide is not honor, it's a shame.'
- President Aleksandar Vucic, who did not attend, framed the gathering as an 'emotional outpouring' and accused the West of anti-Serb bias, stepping up anti-Western rhetoric ahead of an early parliamentary election expected next month.
- Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik and Russian ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko were among those present at the funeral.
Why it matters: Serbia's open honoring of a convicted war criminal while formally pursuing EU membership creates a concrete accession contradiction, already costing Belgrade an official commissioner visit. Vucic is leveraging the moment domestically ahead of next month's expected parliamentary elections, while the Russian ambassador's attendance signals Moscow's alignment with Serbia's anti-Western posture.
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