Original article (in Serbian) was published on 30/5/2025; Author: Milica Ljubičić
The tabloid Informer has been leading a negative campaign against the protesting students for six months, regularly publishing complete fabrications without any evidence, which are then picked up by other pro-regime media. Just recently, Informer has accused the students of preparing bloodshed at the universities and of forming paramilitary units, based on a document that not only makes no mention of such things but also hasn’t even been confirmed to have been created by the students. Boris Kojcinovic, a student at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, told Raskrikavanje that the government is using tabloids and fabricated stories about imaginary actions and paramilitary formations to justify sending police to the universities.
Amid the campaign leading up to the local elections in Kosjeric and Zajecar, and students’ demands for the announcement of early parliamentary elections in the country, tabloids are daily spreading new, unfounded and manipulative accusations against the protesting students. In recent days, they have baselessly claimed that the students are “preparing bloodshed at universities”.
This was first reported yesterday by Informer. “Blockaders form paramilitary units, the goal is bloodshed at universities”, the article states, adding that it is a “militant operation called Operation Atlas”.
The main source of these unfounded and dangerous claims is, in fact, the editor of Informer, Dragan J. Vucicevic. On his show Kolegijum on his own TV channel, he shared details of the alleged “student operation” and claimed that the “blockaders have formed paramilitary formations”.
With this, Informer continued a pattern that the journalists of Raskrikavanje had already noticed last year, that Dragan J. Vucicevic is often the sole source for claims that Informer presents as unquestionable truth.
Vucicevic stated that the students had divided tasks among themselves, that everyone has their own assignments, and he claimed they are all “trained to fight”. All of this, he said, he found in a document titled “Operation Atlas”. He theatrically presented the alleged plan to his audience by drawing on a whiteboard.
“The Komitatensi are, according to our information, the most dangerous blockaders, outsiders, former soldiers, criminals, thugs, trained to fight”, Informer describes the supposed role of one group of students, based on the “findings” of its owner.
“The Limitanci are responsible for internal control, they sit inside the universities and are ready to physically respond if anyone tries to unblock the campuses”, the tabloid claims in its article, also displaying several pages of the mentioned document.
On today’s front page, Informer published a photo of masked young men with batons alongside the headline “Students Form Paramilitary Unit”. The photo was taken during one of the first protests held in front of City Hall in Novi Sad. On that occasion, the building was vandalised, and the students had already distanced themselves from such actions at the time.
The document in question, which was published by Informer as well as numerous other pro-regime media outlets, does not mention bloodshed or any kind of paramilitary force. On the contrary, it emphasises the importance of mutual support and states that the protesting students will not give up their fight to have their demands met.
“Teaching and academic councils declare the end of the blockade and a switch to online platforms (…) To the students, it is clear that this way of resolving the crisis means only one thing: unconditional surrender and turning away from all ideals and goals, as well as a direct rejection of the demands that sparked the blockades. For the students, this way of ending the crisis is, at the very least, unacceptable”, states, among other things, the document published by Informer.
Boris Kojcinovic, a student at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, told Raskrikavanje that he is aware of a document titled “Atlas”, but cannot confirm whether it is the exact document published by Informer.
He explained that the document with that name organizes communication between teams from various faculties and is not any kind of violent or paramilitary action, but rather something completely harmless and straightforward.
“The document refers to the central communications team and includes teams of people at different faculties who listen to the decisions of the plenums and are there to communicate how the working groups operate, for example, to coordinate the direction of the protests”, Kojcinovic explained, adding that these teams help facilitate communication between faculties.
“Our method of resistance is not violent. It is Informer that is waging war, against the common sense of all citizens in our country”.
He added that this is an attempt to discredit the students and create justification for sending police onto university campuses.
“Right now, they are doing everything they can to force online classes, trying through the academic councils and pressuring deans, while students are strictly against it, and we’re saying that our fight is not over”, he said.
“What scares them in all of this is that elections are getting closer. We know elections must happen, and we just need to hold out a little longer”.
“Since they see they can’t break us with forced online classes, which we do not accept, they now have to find a way to send the police onto campuses, and they’re doing that by smearing what the students are doing and inventing operations that don’t exist, fabricating paramilitary formations at universities so that such an action becomes justifiable”, Kojcinovic concluded.
