As the sun set over Belgrade on November 1, 2025, the Serbian city of Novi Sad, some sixty miles to the north, was swelling with a crowd the likes of which it had never seen. More than 100,000 people gathered, not for a festival or a sporting event, but to mark the somber anniversary of a disaster that had shaken the nation to its core: the collapse of the newly renovated railway station’s roof, which killed sixteen passersby—including two children—a year earlier. The gathering, according to Jacobin, was more than a commemoration; it was a demand for justice and a searing indictment of government inaction and corruption that many believe led directly to the tragedy.
For twelve months, Serbia has been gripped by rolling, student-led protests, their crescendo reached on March 15, 2025, when over 250,000 demonstrators filled the streets of Belgrade. Their rallying cry? Accountability for the victims of the Novi Sad collapse and a reckoning for those in power. The movement’s momentum has not waned. On the anniversary, the mother of one of the victims, Dijana Hrka, began a hunger strike in front of the Serbian parliament, refusing to eat until someone took responsibility for her son Stefan’s death. That night, police arrested several students who had come to support her—just the latest in a string of detentions targeting protestors over the past year.
The roots of public outrage run deep. On August 1, 2025, the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime announced charges against a group of individuals linked to the railway station’s reconstruction, including former government ministers Goran Vesić and Tomislav Momirović. The indictment accuses them of embezzling more than $115 million from infrastructure funds—a figure that, for many, confirmed long-held suspicions of high-level corruption. Yet, even as the two former ministers sit under house arrest, Jacobin reports that they continue to pursue business deals, and the case itself languishes in the notorious slow churn of Serbia’s judicial system.
Meanwhile, the face of Belgrade has changed in ways that would surprise anyone who took at face value the glowing paid advertisement recently spotted in the New York Times app: “Ready, Set, Play: Belgrade Gears Up to Show the World Its Creative Spirit.” The reality, as described by Jacobin, is starkly different. Since March, the plaza in front of the parliament building has been occupied by military-style tents, home to men in dark outfits who openly support President Aleksandar Vučić’s regime. The air is regularly pierced by blaring nationalist songs, a far cry from the “music and dancing” spirit touted by the city’s boosters. The encampment’s presence, along with the intimidation tactics directed at grieving parents like Dijana Hrka, underscores the tense, even besieged, atmosphere that now prevails in the Serbian capital.
The government’s response to this unrest has been twofold: a crackdown on dissent and an aggressive campaign to reshape Serbia’s image abroad. Critics argue that President Vučić, who has held power for twelve years and once served as minister of information under Slobodan Milošević during the Yugoslav wars, is deploying taxpayer money in a new kind of "media war." This time, the battle isn’t just over Serbia’s reputation, but over the very narrative of its future. The recent paid post in the New York Times was, in fact, an advertisement for Belgrade Expo 2027—a controversial infrastructure project characterized by secretive contracts and a lack of public oversight. The timing was no accident: just days later, on November 4, the Serbian parliament bulldozed through a special law enabling a hotel construction project involving Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, despite a raft of administrative irregularities.
This fusion of domestic turmoil and international intrigue has not gone unnoticed. According to Vreme, the year has also seen Serbia caught in the crosshairs of global geopolitics. Early in 2025, then-U.S. President Donald Trump announced sanctions against Serbia’s oil company NIS, putting immense pressure on Vučić’s government. In a bid to curry favor and perhaps ease those sanctions, Vučić attempted to leverage his relationship with Kushner, hoping that the Trump family’s involvement might offer a way out. The plan, as Vreme puts it, was “worthy of a team with beer in hand in front of a village store”—a reference to its apparent lack of sophistication.
But the international chess game grew more complicated. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally, limited Serbia’s gas supply arrangements until January 1, 2026, threatening a potential crisis and making it impossible for Serbia to nationalize NIS. At the same time, Trump insisted that Russian owners could only sell their assets to buyers he approved, creating a deadlock that left Serbia’s energy future hanging in the balance. The result? A classic case of what Vreme calls a “double bare”—a no-win scenario, with Serbia squeezed between the competing interests of Moscow and Washington.
Domestically, the government’s grip appears both tighter and more brittle than ever. Vučić’s style of rule, described by Vreme as “unity of power,” seeks to consolidate executive, legislative, and judicial authority in his own hands—a model reminiscent of Stalin. The regime’s efforts to control every aspect of public life have been met with growing resistance: prosecutors daring to challenge the status quo, cultural institutions speaking out, and students refusing to back down. Municipal assemblies now require police cordons to function, and civic activism is on the rise. The term “Ćaciland”—a satirical nickname for Vučić’s Serbia—is invoked as an “island of freedom,” a bitter joke in a country many now see as slipping beyond the president’s control.
In this climate, the gap between official propaganda and lived reality has never been wider. As Jacobin observes, the government’s media blitz masks the fact that “for now, it is the citizens of Serbia who are paying the price for such corruption, including those who have lost their lives.” The stakes are high, and the outcome uncertain. Will Serbia’s burgeoning civic movement succeed in forcing change, or will the regime’s authoritarian reflexes prevail? As the country lurches from crisis to crisis, one thing is clear: the struggle for justice, transparency, and true democracy is far from over.
For many Serbians—those who march in the streets, who mourn lost loved ones, who risk arrest to demand a better future—the events of 2025 have revealed both the depths of their country’s challenges and the resilience of its people. Whether this moment marks the beginning of a new chapter, or merely another turn in a long and difficult road, remains to be seen.
