Ukraine demands Serbia ban pro-Russian politician Medvedchuk's political movement

The embassy of Ukraine in Serbia has sent an official protest to the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a request to stop the activities of the representative office of the Viktor Medvedchuk’s Drugaya Ukraina (Another Ukraine) NGO. [Viktor Medvedchuk is a Ukrainian oligarch and personal friend of Putin's who has been accused of treason and is now living in Russia following a prisoner swap – ed.].

Source: Danas, with reference to the Ukrainian embassy; European Pravda

Details: Back on 5 December 2023, the embassy of Ukraine in Belgrade sent a document to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia asking that the activities of the representative office of Drugaya Ukraina (Another Ukraine) NGO be terminated based on the provision of Article 29 of the Serbian law on business entities, which does not allow the use of the name of the country in the official name of a legal entity without the permission of the relevant foreign state.

The embassy of Ukraine explained to Danas that the termination of activity of this representative office is still a legal matter, but there is also a political aspect. 

Serbia is a candidate country for membership in the European Union, which, along with 140 other countries around the world, has condemned the bloody war against Ukraine, declaring Russia an aggressor country, the embassy said.

"It is a shame to say that attempts by certain political forces to implement an anti-Ukrainian scenario and promote the spread of dirty provocations by [Viktor Medvechyk] to whose daughter international criminal Putin is a godfather," the Ukrainian embassy said in its response.

As the embassy added, this is particularly unpleasant to talk about this "at a time when Ukraine is bleeding to death, trying to consolidate the efforts of the international community, and create a platform for restoring World law and order and peaceful coexistence within the framework of the Peace Formula of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy." 

Commenting on the appeal of the embassy of Ukraine regarding the abolition of the Drugaya Ukraina NGO, its head, Dragan Stanojević, said that it was founded based on Serbian laws.

Background:

• At the end of 2023, it became known that branches of the Drugaya Ukraina (Another Ukraine) NGO, which was created by former Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk accused of treason after his exchange to Russia, had been registered in Serbia. 
• Dragan Stanojević, a candidate for the Serbian parliament who publicly supports Russian aggression, has become the head of the organisation's division. In December 2023, he was elected a member of the Serbian parliament from the We Are the Voice of the People party.
• More than 20 high-ranking European politicians in the field of Foreign Affairs called on the leadership of the EU institutions to investigate allegations of fraud in Serbia's December elections.

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