American spies will reportedly boycott their colleagues in Belgrade over their ‘pro-Russian’ chief
Washington is unhappy with Belgrade’s new choice of spy chief and intends to suspend intelligence cooperation until Serbia rethinks its “personnel solutions,” local CNN affiliate N1 claimed on Friday, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.
Aleksandar Vulin was named head of the Security and Intelligence Agency (BIA) in early December. He was previously in charge of the Interior Ministry, but swapped places with former BIA head Bratislav Gasic as part of a cabinet reshuffle.
According to N1, the US has signaled to Serbia repeatedly that it disapproved of the appointment, most recently at a meeting between US Ambassador Christopher Hill and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic last week.
“Reliable sources” told the outlet that Hill threatened a “deep freeze” in cooperation between the BIA and the US intelligence community, noting that Vulin presented a “major problem” for Washington.
Hill allegedly told Dacic that the US would prefer to collaborate with the Interior Ministry instead, to which Dacic reportedly replied he would arrange for Gasic to visit Washington soon.
Western-mediated Kosovo and Ukraine deals were lies – Serbia
Read more Western-mediated Kosovo and Ukraine deals were lies – Serbia
The CNN affiliate claims the US considers Vulin pro-Russian. As evidence, N1 pointed to Vulin’s multiple meetings with Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s national security council, while he was in charge of the police. They also brought up the accusations by Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza that Vulin had him wiretapped on Moscow’s behalf. Vulin has denied the allegations and said he would sue Kara-Murza for libel.
Following Hill’s meeting with Dacic last week, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic made a cryptic remark about Belgrade crawling with spies, calling the Serbian capital “the new Casablanca,” in reference to the famous WWII Hollywood movie.
In an interview with the local broadcaster TV Pink, Vucic said the city hadn’t seen that much intelligence activity since the Second World War, and that foreign intelligence agents were “obviously preparing various things,” without naming their countries of origin or objectives.
Though Belgrade officially aspires to EU membership, it has steadfastly refused demands from Brussels and Washington to impose sanctions against Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine. Vucic has also refused to recognize the breakaway province of Kosovo as an independent state, something the US has insisted on for almost 15 years.
https://www.rt.com/news/569845-serbia-spies-cia-russia/
The overthrow of PM Sheikh Hasina in 2024 was funded by USAID and Clinton family money, Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury told RT
The unwillingness of Bangladesh to condemn Russia over the Ukraine conflict was one of the reasons the US wanted to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, former cabinet minister and chief negotiator Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury has said in an interview with RT.
Hasina, who led Bangladesh for 15 years, fled the country in August 2024, following weeks of violent student-led protests which claimed 700 lives, according to some estimates.
Chowdhury, who served as the country’s shipping minister, was at the heart of negotiations between the authorities in Dhaka and demonstrators during the crisis. The country has been led by an interim government since then, which pledged to hold an election in 2026.
Chowdhury told RT in an exclusive interview to be aired on Monday that the uprising was instigated by NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the ...
The fighting in southern Lebanon marks the collapse of a fragile truce – and could redraw the region’s balance of power
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of coordinated strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. According to Israeli sources, the strikes targeted weapons depots, command centers, and communication systems used by militants to coordinate their activities along the border area.
Before the operation began, the IDF issued warnings urging residents of several towns to leave areas that could come under fire. The Israeli military emphasized that its actions were aimed solely at military targets but did not rule out the possibility of expanding the operation if provocations from Hezbollah continued.
West Jerusalem accuses Hezbollah of violating ceasefire terms and attempting to rebuild its military capabilities. Just days earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Hezbollah was taking steps to regroup and ...
A recent report has revealed that Paramount Global, an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, maintains an internal blacklist of entertainment figures it labels “anti-Semitic,” applying the term to any artist who supports Palestine or denounces Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Variety magazine reported on Tuesday that Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, has moved to sever ties with all pro-Palestine or anti-Israel movements.
To that end, the company has dismissed executives critical of Israel and refuses to collaborate with any artist or public figure who views the occupying regime’s actions in Gaza as genocidal.
In a statement released on Friday, Paramount said it “disagreed with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers,” claiming that “silencing individual creative artists does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”
The statement came after Film Workers for Palestine, supported by over 4,000 international ...
