Category Archives: Balkans

“Christians Are Persecuted by People of Muslim Faith”

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The Italian city of Trieste lies at the head of the Adriatic, close by the Slovenian border. In the late 19th century Trieste was the epicenter of Italian Irredentism; today it is a hotbed of Muslim infiltration into Italy. The Balkan Route is currently one of the predominant pathways for clandestine immigration into the European Union, and Trieste is the western gateway on that route, opening into Italy and points further north and west.

The following report from Trieste features interviews with various participants in the migration drama, both Muslims and (persecuted) Christians.

Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Tomio Okamura on the Right to National Self-Determination

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Tomio Okamura is the leader of the SPD (Svoboda a přímá demokracie, Freedom and Direct Democracy) political party in Czechia. He is a multicultural Czech: his mother was Moravian and his father Japanese.

In the following video, Mr. Okamura gives a lucid summary of the right to national self-determination — where it applies, and where it doesn’t.

Many thanks to Xanthippa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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It’s Time for Slovenes to Arm Up

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Janez Janša is a former three-time prime minister of Slovenia, and a staunch conservative anti-communist. He has observed the recent deterioration of the security situation in southeastern Europe, and has come to the conclusion that citizens of Slovenia need to arm themselves.

His statement posted on social media has been published by the Slovenian magazine Demokracija:

Janez Janša: The Situation Is Serious. Arm Yourselves. Legally.

Janez Janša has posted an extended post on the social network X about why he thinks the average Slovenian citizen should legally arm himself. The President of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka — SDS) believes that the current government is incapable of protecting Slovenia and its citizens.

“Thank you to all those who have spread the appeal. And also to those who have inadvertently done the same. I am thinking of the radicalised media stars who, during the time of the Covid-19 epidemic, daily called for illegal actions or promoted those who did so, but are now horrified when someone warns people of the danger coming in time, and calls for legal actions,” the former Prime Minister wrote on the social network X.

We are publishing the full text of his post below.

“The wise understood my call. Those smart and responsible will heed it. The rest will trust Golob, Poklukar and Šarec (or even Jenull, Kovac, Muki and the “pride” parades) to be able to protect Slovenia and to protect them personally in the event of terrorist attacks. Which is a bit like believing in 1991 that Školc, Jakic and Aksentijevic could protect Slovenia in the event of the Yugoslavian People’s Army’s aggression. These are officials of the current government of the Republic of Slovenia who, since June, have ignored calls from the SDS party to convene a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss measures to curb illegal migration and manage security risks. They have been tearing down the fence on our southern border, and so now, when in a panic they are reintroducing border controls with our neighbouring countries (although only yesterday Golob was claiming that such controls were of no help), they are merely diverting the flow of illegal immigrants from the roads to the cart tracks.

Prime Minister Golob even said recently that the only solution to the problem of illegal migration is to make it legal! Migrants understood that similarly to Angela Merkel‘s statement in 2015 that they are welcome in Germany. Interior Minister Poklukar said a few days ago that the police have proved their competence by processing more than 40,000 illegal migrants in the asylum procedure in Slovenia this year!? They did not prevent their entry, but instead enabled it! The current Minister of Defence is running his department like a reality show. At the same time, the current Golob government is richly financing the so-called NGOs who, at a recent rally in Ljubljana, directly called for the destruction of the State of Israel and threatened the “infidels” with a “holy” war.

We believe that Slovenian police officers would rather prevent illegal migration than play the role of taxi drivers from the borders to asylum houses. But as the African proverb says: An army of lions led by an elephant will always be defeated by an army of elephants led by a lion. Minister Poklukar is not even able to set up a police station in Ivancna Gorica, so the people of Suha Krajina have had to set up village guards.

The world has changed a lot in the last decade. In the Euro-Atlantic area, mostly for the worse. Western civilisation has been seriously undermined from within in its value foundations. Once again, unpunished evil from Moscow is physically threatening our eastern neighbourhood. The pressure of mass illegal migration is radically dismantling the existing way of life in the European Union and strengthening militant, pro-terrorist nuclei across European metropolises. Once safe and prosperous cities are experiencing an unprecedented increase in crime. Unfortunately, this includes Ljubljana.

The latest incursion into Israel by Palestinian terrorists (once trained en masse in Pancevo in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) has reaffirmed the importance of people being armed — legally and well. In many places, armed individuals in kibbutzim have successfully prevented even greater slaughter of women and children.

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The Cultural Enrichment of Logatec

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Slovenia saw a large influx of “refugees” during and after the Great Migration Crisis of 2015. However, those masses of culture-enrichers were largely transient — they were passing through Slovenia on their way to greener pastures in Austria, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and other points to the north and west of Slovenia. The same could be said of the other countries on the Balkan Route — Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, etc. The migrants would pass through their territory, and maybe engage in a little robbery and rape when the opportunity arose, and then move on to the next country, leaving a lot of rubbish and filth in their wake.

A network of asylum facilities was set up in Slovenia to handle the transient culture-enrichers streaming north to the Promised Land; one such facility is in the town of Logatec. Below is an article from the conservative Slovenian magazine Demokracija with the latest on the asylum center at Logatec:

Crazy: the number of migrants admitted to the Logatec asylum centre last year likely even exceeded the population of the city

If we were to listen only to the government representatives, we would be convinced that the residents of Logatec are absolutely thrilled about the asylum centre in Logatec. However, the information we received from one of our readers from Logatec paints a different picture. Migrants arrive at the centre with police escort, and the number of migrants processed in the centre last year almost exceeds the population of Logatec.

“This is how tourist buses come to the asylum centre in Logatec every Sunday. You have to pay for 2 police officers, the driver, and a luxury Mercedes tourist bus. It is a disaster and a disgrace,” wrote a reader of the portal.

Last year, approximately 10,000 migrants were processed at the asylum centre in Logatec, excluding refugees from Ukraine. The number is extremely high, especially considering that Logatec has a population of around 10,000 people. Many of these migrants have already left the asylum centre. Slovenia is a transit country, and many migrants are headed to wealthier countries.

On the Logatec Municipality’s website in their weekly report, it is stated that there are currently 240 intention applicants for international protection (individuals who have not yet submitted applications), 47 applicants for international protection, and 67 applicants for temporary protection and persons with recognised temporary protection at the Asylum Center in Logatec.

The porosity of state borders is causing problems with our neighbours. Increased border control with Austria has become a regular practice, and the policy of open doors is straining relations even at the highest political level, as was evident from Prime Minister Golob’s recent visit to Vienna. More HERE — in Slovene.

The wave of migration actively encouraged by the policy of open doors is also causing problems on domestic soil. One of the problems is the apparent overload of local police officers. As one of our readers writes, these officers are overwhelmed in the evenings. “We do not have any police on Saturday and Sunday evenings because there are not enough of them,” she writes in an email.

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Gypsies vs. Gypsies

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This report from Cologne isn’t just enricher vs. enricher violence; it’s intramural warfare between gypsy clans. The rich tapestry of multicultural diversity has been exported from the Balkans to Germany.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Junge Freiheit:

Roma vs. Bosniaks

Lynch mob kills in the middle of Cologne

Did a Roma lynch mob kill its victim in Cologne over a feud between family clans? The reason, drunken slurred insults. Apparently a bystander had to die for it. The search for the thirty attackers is difficult.

In a pub in Serbia, a drunk Roma babbled torture fantasies into the internet. The result: one day later, in broad daylight in Cologne, a murderous mob attacked the brother of the drunk. A video that was shown in a murder trial before the district court in Cologne documents the hatred that is breaking ground in the middle of Germany.

The bloody deed happened on March 10 in the Höhenberg district of Cologne. Senad H. (37) slowly drives his Smart across Bamberger Street; he wants to turn off. Suddenly the small car is surrounded by a horde of thirty men. One reaches through the passenger window and pulls the key out of the ignition. The rest of the mob yanks the 37-year-old out of the vehicle. They hit and kick him; they stab the defenseless man 17 times; one of the perpetrators hits him several times with a hammer. Then the attackers flee.

Despite the emergency doctor, clinic and multiple emergency operations, the victim dies two weeks later in the clinic. The police secure video recordings and can thus identify some of the perpetrators; four are arrested. One of them is Halil H. The 31-year-old man has been on trial in the district court since November 23 for joint murder. The public prosecutor is certain that the reason for the lynching of the Roma was the video of the victim’s brother.

Investigators now suspect the lynch mob is out of the country

The day before, he had uploaded a video online in which he sang and slurred his fantasies of torture and murder against a rival Roma family, reported the Bild newspaper. He wields a gun in front of the camera. Then he chops off imaginary hands with a hatchet and is said to have made insulting remarks about the deceased of Halil H.’s family.

“The public prosecutor accuses the defendant of having decided with his family to kill the injured party solely because of his family affiliation,” a spokeswoman for the district court told the Express in the run-up to the trial . “All members of the accused’s extended family should participate in this.” The police are looking for other perpetrators with international arrest warrants. Investigators suspect that the lynch mob has fled abroad.

Afterword from the translator:

It looks like Germany, and the rest of the Western World, is turning itself into a massive South African-style township. Well DONE.

Shootout in Horgoš

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In Serbia, near the Hungarian border, a group of at least six hundred culture-enrichers got a little bit boisterous, and engaged in a round of intramural diversity that involved firearms. Serbian police, unlike their counterparts in the EU, acted decisively against the rambunctious youngsters.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating the German subtitles on this Serbian report, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:


Video link

Video transcript:

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Migrant Storm on the Balkan Route

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The migrant situation in the Balkans is heating up again. The following Austrian report discusses the situation in Serbia.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Der Wochenblick:

Migrant storm in Europe

Asylum report from Serbia: They came with machine guns

The worldwide mass migration of the population to the countries of Western Europe, which began in the spring of 2015, is taking the form of a frightening mass panic that is rolling across the southeastern Balkans northwest of the European Union.

by Milan Timotic, Wochenblick correspondent in Belgrade

Huge wave of migration hits Serbia

Wars, various political or colour revolutions at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century led to large population movements in different directions. Western Europe was hit hardest by these unfortunates. In early 2015, millions of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa poured north via southern Europe and the Mediterranean. The spring of 2022 brought a new, potentially larger wave of migration from Ukraine (six million) and migration experts predict a huge new wave from East Asia and Africa could swamp Europe with more than ten million people in despair.

The Republic of Serbia is in a state of emergency these days due to the arrival of thousands of uninvited “guests”. More than 150 kilometers of the route of the “army” of migrants got caught in the protective net of barbed wire set up by a decision of the Hungarian government in May 2017. With the high security wire barrier, the energetic Hungarian border police manage to respond immediately to the massive, aggressive and almost suicidal onslaught of masses of unwanted persons.

The daily arrival of more and more desperate people who do not lose hope of overcoming all obstacles and entering the fairytale life of the democratic West. Due to the impossibility of leaving the Republic of Serbia, they cause enormous problems for the local population living near the border. Peaceful villages and estates are overrun by strangers, who, locals say, are aggressive and destroy their property.

Knives and machine guns found

The police and special forces of the Serbian gendarmerie are making great efforts to restore order and peace and protect the local population. In a special police raid, which took place in the early morning hours of October 4, 200 foreign citizens without legal residence permits on the territory of the Republic of Serbia were detained in the village of Srpski Krstur. According to the police officers’ report, firearms, knives, a large sum of money and an AK 47 Kalashnikov automatic rifle were seized.

Migrants from all over the world

On the streets of Belgrade nowadays a large presence of unusual “guests” is visible from India, Tunisia, Burundi, North Africa and some other countries which the majority of Belgraders would hardly find on a geographical map. They come to Belgrade on regular flights and enter the territory of Serbia without restrictions, as they are in the regime of visa-free entry and exit. According to the first estimates, 300 “tourists” arrive by this route every day; according to rumors it could be more than 1,000.

These migratory movements were also noticed by the EU, so that shortly afterwards the Austrian Interior and Foreign Ministers Gerhard Karner and Alexander Schallenberg (both ÖVP) and the Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó flew to Belgrade. There they met with Aleksandar Vulin, Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia.

“Serbia will never be a parking lot for migrants from any part of the world, but the European Union should selflessly help Serbia defend itself against invasion of immigrants from Turkey, Greece and North Macedonia.” —Aleksandar Vulin, Serbian Interior Minister

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Something Wicked This Way Comes

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The cultural enrichment of Western Europe continues apace, regardless of the Corona “emergency”, the Ukraine war, the energy crisis, and massive inflation. The newcomers just keep arriving. They’ve heard that Germany is the land where all the goodies are free and all the girls are willing, so they continue to pay the people traffickers (with Soros’ money, but that’s a separate topic) to carry them to the Land of Plenty.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Bild. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

New Wave Via the Balkan Route

In Dresden alone, 100 refugees arrive every day

Dresden

Are we facing a new refugee crisis? More and more often Syrians and Afghans are caught illegally entering Germany! Around a hundred refugees arrive at Dresden’s main railway station every day — and the federal police expect the numbers to increase! At the moment, however, it is still unclear “why migration has suddenly increased so much,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. [Is she really THAT STUPID, or just callous?]

One thing is certain: for weeks now, mainly young men have been fleeing via the Balkan route, wanting to go to Germany. To do this, they get on the Eurocity train in Prague or Budapest to Dresden (from 28 euros
— often without being checked in the neighboring countries.

As Bild learned from security circles, the respective border police are often deliberately looking the other way so that they do not have to register the refugees and keep them with them. “Whoever registers loses” should be the motto.

It was only in Bad Schandau (Saxony), just across the German border, that the federal police got on the trains and made spot checks. Many refugees have no ID with them, and are registered with fingerprints at Dresden Central Station.

In addition, it is checked whether they have already submitted an EU asylum application or whether they have committed criminal offences. They are then distributed to initial reception centers throughout Saxony. [And given German passports, perhaps, so that the migrant crime rate doesn’t go through the roof?]

How long the camp beds last there — unclear! That is why it is now to be checked, among other things, whether the exhibition halls in Dresden can also be used. In Bavaria, too, there is concern about the already overcrowded accommodations. Compared to 2021, the number of refugees has increased fivefold.

“It’s going to be really tight,” said a spokeswoman for the Munich Ministry of the Interior.

Afterword from the translator:

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The Balkan Route Heats Up Again

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A new wave of culture-enrichers is attempting to reach Austria and Germany by taking the Balkan Route overland to Hungary and/or Slovenia. What distinguishes this group from previous waves is that it seems to be notably well-armed — or maybe the soldiers of Allah just happened to get caught this time.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Junge Freiheit. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:

Asylum migration continues to rise

Heavily armed “refugees” wanted to go to Germany

Subotica

Asylum migration is currently increasing massively. In the first half of 2022 alone, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) recorded an increase of 44 percent. But that seems to be just the beginning. All hell is breaking loose on the Balkan route, according to Hungarian and Serbian authorities. Around 45,000 people, mostly from Islamic countries, are there on their way to Germany these days.

Not far from the border between the two countries, Serbian anti-terrorist units had to intervene, the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports. They arrested around 40 heavily armed migrants near Subotica, ten kilometers from Hungary.

A veritable arsenal of automatic assault rifles has been reported. In addition, the “refugees” had four pistols, twelve knives, machetes, sabers and 182 rounds of ammunition of various calibers with them. The officers also seized drugs and forged ID cards and passports. [I guess that’s the expertise that’s really needed now in a Demockeracy]

The violence is already escalating

The focal point of the new migration wave is the Serbian-Hungarian border. From there it is not far to Austria and Germany. The violence is already escalating there. Two hostile Afghan groups recently met in a forest. Result: one dead. [What a pity.]

While the looming wave of immigration in Germany is being tacitly acknowledged, Austria is now reacting. There is talk of a “threatening situation”. That is why a high-ranking delegation from the country traveled to Hungary yesterday with officials responsible for internal security and combating people smuggling.

Austria wants to cooperate with Hungary

There they exchange information with the Hungarian police. Together they traveled to the Serbian border. Austria will increase the number of its border guards there to up to 50 officers. [Against 45,000? WOW, are they armed with teddy bears, candles and flowers?] The country also uses drones and thermal imaging cameras.

The Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) is alarmed. He said that “in the fight against human smuggling and also illegal migration, close cooperation with our neighbor Hungary is a decisive factor”.

Afterword from the translator:

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The Kosovo Question Applied to the DPR and the LPR

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In the following video Russian President Vladimir Putin explains the reasoning behind his recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) as sovereign entities. I find his logic compelling, but it leads me to an entirely different conclusion: that Kosovo should never have achieved international recognition as an independent state.

This clip was translated from the Italian voice-over. Many thanks to HeHa for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:


Video link

Video transcript:

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The Ottoman Empire Strikes Back

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Fly the friendly skies to asylum in Austria!

There’s a new Balkan Route for culture-enrichers who long to wage Asylum Jihad in Europe. They simply buy an air ticket from North Africa to Istanbul, and then board a second flight to Belgrade, where people-smugglers take them across Hungary to asylum paradise in Austria

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Kronen Zeitung:

“Asylum!” — Escape to Europe by plane

Not only is the number of arrests in Burgenland increasing dramatically. More and more migrants are flying to Europe quite legally, and only after landing, with the help of smugglers, make their way to the EU via new refugee routes. The “customers” pay almost €5,000 to their criminal companions. Shocking images are only too well remembered by any political observer as desperate emigrants from North African countries faced a life-threatening struggle to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa across the Mediterranean. At the peak of this wave of refugees, more than 2,000 migrants made it to the island within 24 hours. Many future compatriots no longer take this risk.

Legal with a passport

You buy plane tickets, pack the essentials in a small backpack, and off you go to the airport! “The new refugee route is the airlift from North Africa to Istanbul in Turkey and from there to Belgrade, Serbia,” report Austrian border officials abroad. The refugees travel legally with their passports.

“Once they land in Belgrade, most migrants throw away the passport or send the travel document back to their home address,” police officials say, based on research. From the Serbian-Hungarian border, many migrants are brought to Austria by smugglers: “Asylum!”

8,000 at the Hungarian border

More and more North Africans are using the new refugee route by plane. The numbers alone prove that. From January to April 2021, a total of 2,000 migrants were discovered and registered in Burgenland. More than 200 of them were from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey. In the same period this year, 8,000 migrants have already been reported at the border with Hungary.

More than 1300 of them disembarked from Morocco, Algeria and the other three states mentioned. “More refugees are expected in the weeks leading up to the summer,” insiders say. The total number of asylum seekers has already almost quadrupled. Concerned mayors from the border towns are asking themselves: “What else has to happen before high-level politicians react?”

Afterword from the translator:

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The Fifth Balkan War?

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The Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe has been a tinderbox for the past 120 years. The volatility of the region was interrupted by the Cold War, but after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 it resumed where it had left off.

The first two Balkan wars — in 1912 and 1913 — were prodromal symptoms of the Great War, which followed shortly after them. Some writers refer to the events of 1914-1918 as the “Third Balkan War”. Along the same lines, one might call the period 1991-1999 — from the breakup of Yugoslavia to the Kosovo War — as the Fourth Balkan War.

Is the Fifth Balkan War at hand?

Last night I posted about an old Soviet-era drone that crashed last Thursday in Zagreb after traversing the airspace of Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, and Croatia. I tended to agree with our Croatian correspondent Vortac that the launch of the drone was likely a Russian operation, intended as a twofer: to gather intelligence about the reactions of three NATO member states, with the blame for incident assigned on the Ukrainians. But that was just an educated guess after applying Occam’s Razor to the available information.

Vortac was of the opinion that the drone carried no explosives, based on the diminutive crater it produced upon impact. However, the Croatian defense ministry appears to disagree, according to an incidental mention in this article from Hungary Today about the reaction to the drone by the opposition parties in the Hungarian parliament:

Opposition Demands Answers from Gov’t about Foreign Drone in Hungarian Airspace

DK, Jobbik, LMP, the Everyone’s Hungary Movement (MMM), Momentum, the Socialists (MSZP), and Párbeszéd said in a joint statement that Orbán must answer without delay and without hesitation whether the Hungarian armed forces are able to defend Hungary in view of the fact that on March 10, a TU-141 type drone stayed in Hungarian airspace undisturbed for 40 minutes and, according to the Croatian defence ministry, carried a bomb.

The aircraft had likely crossed over the entirety of Hungary or parts of neighboring countries before hitting the ground.

The parties also asked Orbán whether Hungarian Gripens had been scrambled to intercept the drone and if not, why not.

In case the Hungarian armed forces intercepted the drone, it is an unacceptable explanation that they did not think it posed any danger, the united opposition said.

The defence ministry said a similar incident had occurred again around noon on Friday in north-eastern Hungary.

That little tidbit makes this latest news from Hungary even more interesting. It seems Hungarian fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a civilian plane that entered Hungarian airspace from Serbia while allegedly carrying an explosive device.

Also from Hungary Today:

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The Droning of Croatia

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Late Thursday night an old Soviet-era surveillance drone crashed in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Fortunately for the residents of Zagreb, the aircraft landed in an uninhabited area, and no one was injured. It did not appear that the city had been deliberately targeted.

It has been suggested that the drone was launched by the Ukrainian military, which has been known to employ old Soviet drones. However, the Ukrainians deny all involvement.

The following video report from Croatia discusses the mysterious Soviet drone. Vortac, who translated the text for subtitles, includes the following analysis and proposes a likely explanation for the appearance of the drone in Croatian airspace:

The drone hit in the middle of the night, so surveillance cameras only recorded a very brief flash and nothing else. Of course, local newspapers have visited the crash site and filmed the crater with some commentary, but with very few insights. Even the crater looks fortunately unremarkable since the drone apparently carried no warhead and the damage it made was likely from its kinetic impact only.

My opinion is that the Russian army launched the drone as a false flag operation in an attempt to put some blame on the Ukrainians, to gather some intelligence, and to roughly target the Croatian capital. The drone flew over Ukraine, Romania, Hungary and Croatia, testing the reaction capabilities of Ukraine and three NATO countries, and that’s by far the most convenient route for Russians, since it maximizes the amount of gathered intelligence, and since it was probably too risky to launch it over the Baltic countries or Poland (where anti-Russian sentiments are much higher).

That kind of obsolete equipment probably doesn’t have any GPS or remote guidance capabilities, so if the Ukrainians launched it towards Russia or Crimea, it’s very difficult to explain how it made the 180° turn and finished over southeast Europe, even in error. Therefore, the route was probably predetermined, and only the Russian army would find such a route/operation tactically useful.


Video link

Here’s what the BBC said about the incident:

Mystery Drone From Ukraine War Crashes in Croatia

People in Croatia’s capital Zagreb were rudely awakened to Russia’s war in Ukraine when a military drone crashed in the city late last night [Thursday March 10].

There was an explosion in the southwestern Jarun district shortly after 23:00 (22:00 GMT). Residents found a crater and wreckage scattered close to student accommodation.

Zagreb’s mayor Tomislav Tomasevic said “it’s amazing that no-one was injured”.

Croatia’s president said there was no sign the country had been targeted.

Witness reports suggested the only person hurt was a man who fell off his bicycle as the drone hit the ground.

Markings on the debris included Cyrillic lettering and a five-pointed star. Local experts said these suggested that the drone was a Soviet-era TU-141 reconnaissance aircraft.

Despite the drone’s vintage, it has been deployed by the Ukrainian military both in 2014 and during the current conflict.

Croatian media have been speculating about its origin. Although Ukraine’s embassy in Zagreb declined to comment, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence ministry was adamant the drone was not Ukrainian and did not have Ukrainian markings.

Video transcript:

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Och, the Puir Wee Bosnian Bairns!

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A German journalist was caught trafficking migrants across the border from Bosnia to Croatia. It seems the enterprising member of the Fourth Estate contrived to enable the border crossing in order to create a heart-rending story that he could write up for his newspaper.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from the Austrian tabloid eXXpress:

Employee of the left-wing Tagesspiegel arrested as a human trafficker

It is reminiscent of the “Relotius” case. The German blogger and journalist of the left-wing Berlin portal Tagesspiegel Sebastian Leber (44) was arrested on the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina — he was accompanied by a group of migrants whom he allegedly wanted to bring illegally across the border to write an article later about their harrowing trip.

Leber had crossed the border illegally with seven migrants. The attempt to create his own “maudlin” story was stopped by the Croatian border police.

The German blogger and journalist of the “Tagesspiegel” Sebastian Leber was arrested in Croatia because he wanted to smuggle migrants illegally across the EU’s external border and make a story out of it.

— Jonas (@realjonaswd) November 21, 2021

Smuggling charges dropped — appeal

The incident occurred on Friday in the municipality of Cetingrad near the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Karlovac City Court sentenced the journalist to a fine of 3,600 kuna (€500) for illegally crossing the border. The court dropped the charge of smuggling brought by the border police. The border police announced an appeal against the first instance judgment.

UPDATE: Statement from the editor-in-chief

Update: Late in the afternoon, the editor-in-chief of the Tagesspiegel, Lorenz Maroldt, spoke up: Leber went to the border as a reporter, the comparisons with Relotius were “absurd”. In addition (as can be seen in the eXXpress article, editor’s note) the charge of smuggling was dropped.