New General Staff Building at Banjica: 13.8 Billion Dinars

Caretaker Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic visited the construction site of the new Defense Ministry and Serbian Armed Forces General Staff building at the “Banjica” barracks in Belgrade on September 28. According to Defense Ministry figures, the state will spend a total of 13.775 billion dinars on it between 2026 and 2028.

The ministry said Gasic expressed satisfaction with the pace of the work and stressed how important the new building is for the working conditions of the Ministry and the General Staff.

How is the money split by year?

The sum is spread over three budget years:

• 2026: 7.655 billion dinars
• 2027: 5.255 billion dinars
• 2028: 865.317 million dinars

The project is part of the Defense Ministry’s medium-term plan for 2026 to 2028 and is listed as “Construction of the new Defense Ministry and General Staff building.” The planned usable floor area is 50,000 square meters, and the contractor is the Military Construction Center (Vojnogradjevinski centar). The cornerstone was laid in late December 2025, and the work is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2028.

For wider context: the 2026 budget revision allocated a total of 315.9 billion dinars to the Defense Ministry and the Serbian Armed Forces, or 2.8 percent of gross domestic product.

What did the minister say?

During the visit, Gasic also spelled out what the department he leads expects from the building:

“The new building should meet the needs of the Defense Ministry and the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff and give employees even better conditions for carrying out work of great importance to the functioning of the defense system. Besides contributing to the organization of work, communication and coordination, the new facilities will provide a better working environment for people who carry great responsibility every day and look after the security of our country and all its citizens. That is why it is of exceptional importance that this project is carried out well and in line with the planned schedule.”

The statement comes from a Defense Ministry press release, and in it the minister names no new deadline or figure. The end-2028 deadline and the spending schedule are known from the Ministry’s own data.

Why is the General Staff leaving central Belgrade?

The Serbian Armed Forces General Staff is currently housed temporarily on Unknown Soldier Street (Neznanog junaka) in Dedinje. The complex on Kneza Milosa Street, where it was originally based, was badly damaged in the 1999 NATO bombing. The Defense Ministry still works in the part of that complex facing Bircaninova Street, which did not suffer serious damage.

The new site is meant to bring the work space of both institutions under one roof, and their headquarters are being moved out of the very center of the city. At the cornerstone ceremony, officials said the complex would be designed in a security-friendly setting and should be finished within three years.

The bombed buildings at the intersection of Kneza Milosa and Nemanjina have a more recent history of their own. The Serbian government had intended to hand the site over to a company run by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, which planned apartments and a luxury hotel there. Kushner pulled out of the deal after a public backlash in Serbia. Court proceedings have also been opened over suspicions that documents were forged to strip the General Staff complex of its protected cultural monument status, and the defendants include caretaker Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic.