Izvor: N1 televizija, 17.Sep.2018, 21:01 (ažurirano 02.Apr.2020.)
Analysts: Which side Serbia will take after army changes
After the changes in Army of Serbia’s top brass, military analysts speculate whether new people will lean more to the West or Russia, N1 reported.
The longest-serving chief-of-staff General Ljubisa Dikovic retired and made room for a new army boss Colonel General Milan Mojsilovic.
Aleksandar Radic, a military analyst, told N1 that Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, also the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, who decides on highest army posts, had >> Pročitaj celu vest na sajtu N1 televizija << replaced Dikovic months after the general was supposed to retire “to create an image of not yielding to pressure.”
Radic said that foreign diplomats wanted Dikovic replaced, but that Vucic stalled for several months.
Vucic has praised Dikovic for his long-time service, describing him as a man who was “imprisoned by the enemy forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and who resisted NATO aggression (the Alliance’s 1999 bombing campaign against the then Yugoslavia over the situation in Kosovo).”
Dikovic was denied a US visa last year, while his successor Mojsilovic had spent four years in Serbia’s mission at NATO HQ in Brussels.
However, Mojsilovic’s deputy, former head of the Military Security Agency, Major General Petar Cvetković, is believed to be of pro-Russian affiliations.
Katarina Djokic, from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policies, told N1 that both appointments could be seen as a political signal that Serbia was ready to cooperate with both sides.
But Radic has said it is wrong to speculate who are pro-Western or pro-Russian officers at the army’s helm.
“They are under the control of the current regime, and that has been the main criteria for the posts,” he said.
On the other hand, Radic said he was surprised with the appointment of Colonel Djuro Jovanic as the Military Intelligence Agency chief since "he had never been an intelligence officer, neither had he participated in the wars in former Yugoslavia."
Colonel Jovanic’s was the head of a military restaurant, served as a military policeman and as Vucic’s adjutant in his capacity as the Defence Minister (2012-2013).
Before the latest appointment, Jovanic was the head of the Srpska Banka Executive Board.
