Good news from Moscow: the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (Slobodan Milošević’s party) didn’t manage to return to Serbia due to airports being closed during Ukrainian drone strikes. Mind you, even the pro-student media, such as N1, reporting on it are framing it as ” a drama”.
Yes, how very terrible.
Dačić spent his time in Moscow prancing around Maria Zakharova, gifting her Serbian female traditional attire. Zakharova is one of the most recognizable faces of Russian politics among the Serbian public, and even the non-government media often repeat her statements verbatim, without any context or challenging her claims, in what appears to be an effort to keep presenting Russia in a favorable light to the Serbian audience.
Russia and Socialists have a history. After the fall of Milošević 26 years ago, Slobodan’s son Marko escaped to Russia to avoid criminal investigations for connections with organized crime during the 1990s, the Russian government officially granted him political asylum and refugee status, while his mother, Mira Marković, emigrated to Moscow in 2003 to avoid a trial. An Interpol warrant was issued, but she was also given the status of a political refugee by the Russian authorities. She died there in 2019 and was buried in Serbia next to her husband in their backyard in Požarevac.
Yup, they are buried in their backyard. Take a look at their graves.
It writes that Milošević was “killed in the Hague camp”, while Mira was “born in the Partisans, died in exile”. Contemporary Serbian nationalist mythology considers Milošević a martyr who died in the “Hague dungeon innocent of any crimes”, often spreading conspiracy theories that he was murdered during detention. The nationalist camp insists that extraditing Milošević in 2001 was against Serbian national interests and a disgrace.
Mira Marković also headed her own political party, the Yugoslav Left, and was a coalition partner to her husband’s Socialists. Aleksandar Vulin, one of Serbia’s most outspokenly pro-Russian politicians of today and an ally of Vučićs party, who also has his own political organization called the Movement of Socialists, was a prominent member of the Yugoslav Left (JUL for short in Serbian). JUL members were considered vapid, ideology-free opportunists who joined her party out of self-interest alone. Yugoslav Left also produced one of the cringiest political slogans in Serbian history: “JUL je cool!”, meaning “JUL is cool!”, accompanied by a legendary craptastic campaign video, often broadcast on Pink TV, owned by her then-party comrade Željko Mitrović.
Their grandson Marko continued the family tradition and is a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia and served as a member of the Serbian parliament.
