In Serbia, ‘Fictitious’ Corruption Campaign Becomes Tool of Distraction

In January 2025, facing growing protests in the wake of the fatal collapse of an outdoor railway station canopy, then President Aleksandar Vucic announced a “fierce fight against corruption”. As if on cue, dozens of people were arrested on suspicion of graft, many of them public officials. The arrests were unrelated to the railway station tragedy, in which 16 people died, but they filled the frontpages of tabloid newspapers for weeks, as one high-profile arrest followed another.