Jandrokovic: Serbia Waging Dirty Propaganda, Arming Itself

Croatian parliament speaker Gordan Jandrokovic told reporters today that Serbia is rewriting the history of the late twentieth century, running hostile propaganda against its neighbors and arming itself, warning that Croatia needs to be ready for any kind of response. It is the first public statement from a Zagreb official since Ratko Mladic’s funeral in Belgrade, and a markedly sharper one than Croatia’s previous reactions to the event, tying it directly to Belgrade’s foreign policy at a moment when Serbia is balancing between Brussels and Moscow.

The convicted war criminal was buried on Monday, September 7, in a family plot at Belgrade’s Topcider cemetery, with a church service and military honors. Among the thousands of people in the funeral procession were several ministers from the Serbian government as well as officials from Republika Srpska, which Zagreb has read as further proof that Serbia continues to glorify a man convicted over the Srebrenica crimes.

“Along with Milosevic, Mladic is a symbol of Greater Serbia policy, a symbol of the crimes and genocide in Srebrenica,” Jandrokovic, the speaker of the Croatian parliament, told reporters, saying it was almost unbelievable to watch such scenes play out in Serbia. In his view, this shows Belgrade sliding back to the positions it held in the 1990s, at a time when, he claims, “Serbia is running an extremely dirty propaganda” campaign against its neighbors, with Croatia bearing the brunt of it.

The parliament speaker also pointed to three elements he says demonstrate the seriousness of the situation. “There are three elements: the revision of history, hostile propaganda and arming,” Jandrokovic told reporters, adding that Zagreb has to “keep an eye on what is happening there and be ready for every kind of response.”

Jandrokovic issued a similar warning about arming last month, in mid-August, at a conference of Croatian ambassadors, consuls and military attaches, when he claimed Serbia was acquiring not only defensive weapons but offensive, attack-capable ones as well. He did not repeat that specific claim to reporters today, but arming remains one of the three elements he cites as evidence that Belgrade is changing course.

Jandrokovic also argued that Serbia is trying to shift itself from the position of aggressor to that of victim by rewriting the history of the late twentieth century. He criticized European institutions as well, saying they avoid speaking openly about Serbia because they do not want to push it further toward Russia, believing a softer approach will achieve more. He said this amounts to a return to 1990s-style politics that should be discussed openly rather than passed over in silence.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had already criticized the European Union’s muted reaction to the funeral a day earlier, on September 7, telling a joint session of the HDZ presidency and national committee that Brussels’ senior officials, not just the European Commission’s spokesperson, should have responded to the events in Belgrade. Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho said on Monday that a state funeral had been announced but that this “did not happen,” and that it was up to Serbia to decide how it organizes the burial. Plenkovic said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas should have weighed in.

The Topcider funeral has dominated regional coverage since Monday. Serbian outlets had already reported on the presence of five Serbian government ministers and on the funeral service led by Patriarch Porfirije, along with a list of officials who appeared at the cemetery that day.

Jandrokovic’s statement lands at a time when Zagreb and Belgrade have no open diplomatic dispute, but exchanges of sharp assessments are becoming more frequent whenever Serbia marks anything tied to the 1990s. Croatia’s message is that further statements from Zagreb about Serbia will not stay at the level of procedural reactions but will be tied directly to the region’s security assessment. Whether Brussels shifts its tone toward Belgrade, and whether Jandrokovic’s claim about arming draws an official response from Serbia’s Defense Ministry, should become clearer in the coming week on both capitals’ political calendars.