Aleksandar Vučić: The Man Who Praises War Criminals and Dreams of Ethnic Purity
In a moment of jaw-dropping candor that should disqualify any modern European leader, Aleksandar Vučić stood in Kosovo in 2018 and declared: “Milosevic was a great Serbian leader.”
Let that sink in. Not a reluctant acknowledgment of past history. Not a nuanced historical footnote. A direct, public celebration of Slobodan Milošević — the architect of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II, the man whose nationalist frenzy fueled wars, mass rapes, concentration camps, and the Srebrenica genocide. Vučić didn’t just reference him; he called him great.
This isn’t ancient history or a gaffe from his radical youth. This is the President of Serbia, speaking as an adult head of state on sensitive territory still scarred by the very policies he was praising. The same Vučić who once served as Milošević’s information minister, helping enforce media censorship and propaganda during the Kosovo war.
No Daylight Between Past and Present
The grotesque symmetry is impossible to ignore. While Vučić was busy lionizing Milošević in Mitrovica, members of his political ecosystem were openly fantasizing about finishing the job of ethnic cleansing that Milošević started. Serbia’s Minister of Public Administration, Snežana Paunović, later stated without shame that she “would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo in 1998.”
There is, as one observer aptly put it, no daylight between them. This is not a party of reformed democrats reluctantly managing a difficult legacy. This is a political machine that still romanticizes the butcher of the Balkans and keeps ethnic expulsion as a live policy option in the minds of its officials.
Vučić’s defenders will rush in with the usual caveats he tacked on — “but the results were poor,” “intentions were good.” Spare us. Praising the intentions of a man responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions displaced is not damage control; it is moral bankruptcy. It signals to Serbian nationalists that the dream of Greater Serbia, achieved through blood and fire, remains a noble vision — just one that needs better execution next time.
Authoritarian
This bizarre nostalgia fits perfectly with Vučić’s broader record: creeping authoritarianism, captured institutions, harassment of independent media, and a personality cult that tolerates no real opposition. While waving the EU flag when convenient, he cozies up to authoritarian powers and keeps the nationalist base fed with revisionism and grievance. Protests against corruption and misrule have been met with denials, arrests, and conspiracy theories about foreign plots.
His recent announcement of resignation and early elections changes nothing fundamental. Many see it as a maneuver to retain real power, perhaps as a stronger prime minister, while pretending to bow to public pressure. The man who praises Milošević does not suddenly become a democrat because polls or protests force a tactical retreat.
The Regional Danger
For Kosovo, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Croatia, Vučić’s Serbia represents unfinished business. His words in 2018 were not reconciliation — they were provocation wrapped in false piety. They revive the ghosts of the 1990s and tell the region that Serbia’s leadership still views history through the lens of victimhood and revanchism rather than accountability and European values.
Europe and the West have indulged this for too long, hoping pragmatism would moderate him. It hasn’t. A leader who calls Milošević “great” has no business lecturing others about stability or European integration. Serbia deserves better than recycled nationalism dressed up as statesmanship. The Balkans deserve a Serbia that confronts its past instead of celebrating its worst chapters.
Vučić’s bizarre homage to a war criminal isn’t just embarrassing rhetoric. It is a warning — one the region and its partners ignore at their peril.
Source
https://twitter.com/admirim/status/2078176924422070356/video/1
