RISTANOVIĆ: SERB PEOPLE WERE EXPOSED TO EXTREMISM, TERRORISM, AND SEPARATISM

ZVORNIK, MARCH 19 /SRNA/ - The Serb people were exposed to extremism, terrorism, and separatism, and as a result of defending against these attacks, Republika Srpska was established at a time when the Serbs were alone, it was emphasized tonight in Zvornik during the panel discussion “Hybrid War and Our Reality.”

Academic Elizabeta Ristanović stated that in the 1990s, the Serbs were the first to defend the idea of a multipolar world. “We have experienced both in theory and in practice what a hybrid war means, when the state for which we suffered was destroyed, and when media demonization and economic blockade were applied,” Ristanović said. She explained that hybrid war encompasses the totality of military and non-military actions, the use of hard and soft power, coercion, and everything that was applied against the Serb people and their state. According to her, all the tools of hybrid warfare were used against the Serbs - extremism, terrorism, separatism, color revolution, and the sanctioning of political and military leadership. She added that, from a geopolitical perspective, the Serbs are not even fully aware of the immense historical role they played, perhaps buying time for the rise of the Russian Federation and China, and now can reflect on a multipolar world that is still distant but beginning to emerge on the horizon. “In this context, it is very important to emphasize the message that we should turn to brotherly love, unity, and our Svetosavlje /teachings of Saint Sava/,” Ristanović said, speaking about the book “Yalta Two and the Collapse of the Parasite Empire” by Russian academic Igor Nikolayevich Panarin, for which she is the editor of the Serbian edition. Colonel Milan Jolović, known as Legenda, said that the author describes in a very engaging way how ministers of foreign and internal affairs in Imperial Russia were agents of foreign influence, while during the collapse of the Soviet Union, even Mikhail Gorbachev himself was involved. “Unfortunately, we too were victims of a hybrid war, and we cannot view the position of Republika Srpska and Serbia locally, but only within the overall security and geopolitical situation of the entire European or Eurasian sphere,” Jolović said.