Serbia’s populist president says lithium protests are part of a ‘hybrid’ warfare against his country

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia’s president Sunday accused demonstrators who opposed a lithium mining project in the Balkan country of being part of a Western-backed “hybrid” warfare against his government and vowed to take strong legal action against those protesters who have blocked railway and road traffic in the capital a day earlier.

In one of the biggest protests in recent years, tens of thousands took to the streets in the capital, Belgrade, Saturday against lithium mining in Serbia, despite officials’ warnings of their alleged plot to unseat populist President Aleksandar Vučić and his government.

Some of the protesters later blocked tracks at two railway stations in the city, and briefly stopped traffic on a major highway. Riot police early Sunday pushed them out of the railway stations with their riot shields.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said 14 people have been brought in for questioning. Police are working to identify all the perpetrators who will face charges, he said.

Vucic told reporters Sunday that although the main protest was done democratically, the blockage of traffic on the highway amounted to “terror of the minority over the majority.”

“It is part of the hybrid approach” designed to topple the government, Vucic told reporters. “We knew everything in detail. You think you have surprised someone… we have always been restrained, without violence we ensured order in the country, without a problem.”

Vučić said last week he had been tipped off by Russian intelligence services that a “mass unrest and a coup” were being prepared in Serbia by unspecified Western powers that wish to oust him from power.

Government officials and state-controlled media have launched a major campaign against the Saturday rally, comparing it to the Maidan uprising in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, that led to the toppling of the country’s then pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych in 2013. Organizers of the Belgrade protest have repeatedly denied those charges.

Satuday’s demonstration came after weeks of protests in dozens of cities throughout Serbia against a government plan to allow lithium mining in a lush farming valley in the west of the country.

This plan was scrapped in 2022 after large demonstrations were held that included the blocking of key bridges and roads. But it was revived last month and received a boost in a tentative deal on “critical raw materials” signed by Vučić’s government with the European Union.

The Balkan nation is formally seeking EU membership while maintaining very close ties with both Russia and China. The EU memorandum on the mining of lithium and other key materials needed for the green transition would bring Serbia closer to the bloc, and would reduce Europe’s lithium battery and electric car dependency on China.

While the government insists that the mine is an opportunity for economic development, critics say it would inflict irreparable pollution on the Jadar valley, along with its crucial underground water reserves and farming land.

Vučić said Sunday there will be no lithium mining in the next two years while all the risks are being investigated, in an apparent attempt to pacify critics. He also offered a referendum on the issue — something unlikely to be considered by the environmentalists with Vučić’s alleged history of rigging votes in his favor.