03.02.2024.
Statement
The Ministry of Defence strongly condemns and rejects a series of defamatory claims and malicious untruths publically stated by the Military Union over the past several days against the most important leaders in the defence system, primarily against the Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff and the director of the Military Security Agency.
The union’s statements, like the one today accusing the Military Security Agency of “behaving and acting like an organized crime group” and labelling its director as “the leader of the crime groups”, and earlier statements accusing the Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff and the director of the Military Security Agency of various incriminating acts such as malfeasance, are in breach of all standards of decency and rules of public communication.
The Military Union stepped outside its circle of competences long ago, through its representatives’ open political involvement, attempts to interfere with the process of managing and commanding the Serbian Armed Forces, interference with the matters of equipping the SAF with new combat systems, health care for members of the MOD and SAF and public health in general, attempts to publically sabotage competitions for the admission of new recruits to Special Forces and Army units and innumerable other harmful actions against the defence system, chiefly aiming to discredit senior leaders and ruin the reputation of the system as a whole.
The Ministry of Defence asserts confidently that the opinions expressed publicly by the leadership of the Military Union, and especially the way in which these opinions are formulated, do not correspond to the beliefs shared by vast majority of the members of that organization. A dialogue with unions that strive to improve the position and working conditions for the members of the MOD and SAF would, without a doubt, be useful and constructive, but in the atmosphere created by the actions of the current leadership of the Military Union of Serbia, such dialogue is impossible.
