Protesters carry a giant Serbian flag during a student-led rally in Belgrade, Serbia, on 28 June 2025. Photo: EPA/ANDREJ CUKIC

Senior Kremlin officials said on Monday that Russia was closely monitoring the ongoing anti-government protests in Serbia, which it claimed may constitute an attempt at a Western-backed “colour revolution” to oust Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.

Mass protests against corruption and media censorship have swept Serbia since November, when the collapse of a concrete canopy at the main railway station in Novi Sad, the country’s second city, killed 16 people.

On Saturday, around 140,000 people gathered in central Belgrade to demand snap parliamentary elections and an end to Vučić’s 12-year rule in a demonstration the Serbian president claimed had been orchestrated by “foreign powers”.

Some 77 people were detained in clashes between police and protesters on Saturday night, with student-led protest groups later announcing a campaign of civil disobedience after the government rejected their demands for early elections and the removal of a pro-government counter-protest encampment in central Belgrade.

Amid the mounting tensions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow was “monitoring the situation” and “interested in ensuring that the unrest calms down”.

Speaking to reporters in the Kyrgyz resort town of Cholpon-Ata, Lavrov said Russia hoped that Western countries, which “always try to exploit various internal events in different countries to advance their own interests”, would “refrain from engaging in their colour revolutions this time”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later echoed Lavrov’s remarks, telling Russian state news agency TASS that Serbia was under “unprecedented pressure” and that Moscow could not “rule out” that Western powers were deploying “well-known methods of provoking colour revolutions” in the Balkan state.

Nevertheless, the Kremlin had “no doubt that the current Serbian leadership will be able to restore law and order in the republic in the very near future”, Peskov said.

Serbia has maintained a delicate relationship with Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Belgrade has not joined Western sanctions against Moscow, partly due to its continuing dependence on Russian oil and gas, while Vučić was one of just two European leaders to travel to Moscow for Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in May.

Despite its perceived historical ties to Russia, Serbia has also stressed its support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the wake of Russia’s invasion, with Vučić making a surprise first-ever visit to the country for a regional summit last month.