Original article (in Serbian) was published on 08/04/2023
On April 3, the daily Srpski telegraf published the “shocking truth after 28 years” on its front page, which refers to the “pact between the Americans and the Russians before the Storm”. According to this tabloid, Russian diplomat Leonid Kerestedzijanc “revealed previously unknown details about the collapse of Krajina”.
However, there are several problems in all of this: Kerestedzijanc died about four years ago, the “unknown details” he was talking about were published by Vecernje novosti more than 20 years ago, and Srpski telegraf created its text using the texts of the web portal Banija online, Ekspres and Deutsche Welle, without citing the source.
Who is Leonid Kerestedzijanc and what is the text of Srpski telegraf about?
Leonid Kerestedzijanc is a Russian diplomat who was Russia’s ambassador to Croatia during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. According to his testimony, as well as other sources, he was one of the initiators of the so-called Z-4 plan, which was supposed to stop the bloodshed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and solve the issue of the Serbs who lived in those areas.
According to the same sources, the Croatian side accepted the plan, but the Serbian side rejected it, so the implementation never took place. In addition to Kerestedzijanc, the initiative to implement this plan was also led by German diplomat Gert-Hinrich Arens, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide and American ambassador in Zagreb Peter Galbraith. Because of this, Srpski telegraf calls the mentioned initiative the “pact between Americans and Russians”. Not long after the Z-4 plan failed, the “Storm” began in Croatia.
How did Srpski telegraf create its text?
Only the first two and the last paragraph of the text by Srpski telegraf can be considered a new and original work, along with an inserted part that talks about the medal that Leonid Kerestedzijanc received from the then Croatian president Franjo Tudjman.
Immediately after the introduction, the tabloid quotes Leonid Kerestedzijanc, taking statements identical to those reported by the web portal Ekspres 2020, which actually come from the text of Vecernje novosti published in 2003, when the newspaper interviewed the Russian diplomat in Moscow. In some parts of its text, Srpski telegraf even cites paraphrases from the Ekspres’ text as a direct quote.
After several paragraphs devoted to the statements of the Russian diplomat which, according to Srpski telegraf, “came to light”, the tabloid completely takes over one paragraph from a three-year-old text by Sava Strpac, president of the VERITAS Documentation Information Center, without citing the source. That text was published on the web portal Banija online. Then follow two paragraphs that Srpski telegraf copied, that is, from the text it already published about the Z-4 plan in 2019.
The text is also equipped with inserts which are taken from the texts of Ekspres and Deutsche Welle without citing the source. The tabloid took the part related to the “chatting of Serbian and Croatian generals” from the web portal Ekspres, while the investigation into the Z-4 plan of the German diplomat Gert Hinrich Arens was taken from his interview with Deutsche Welle, published in 2020.
The text also contains two responses. The first is the reaction of the wartime mayor of Knin, Drago Kovacevic, which was also copied by Srpski telegraf, that is, taken from the text published in 2019. The second is the reaction of the already mentioned Sava Strpac, which was created based on his statements for the web portal Srbija danas in 2020.
What is most noticeable in the “shocking truth after 28 years” published by Srpski telegraf is that the main protagonist of this text – Russian diplomat Leonid Kerestedzijanc – died in 2019. This was announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.