site.btaBomb Hoaxes in Serbia: Speculation and Reality

Serbia has been inundated with fake threats about bombs planted in various public places, mainly in the capital Belgrade. So far, the authorities have identified several email addresses from which such threats have been issued. One can only speculate about the reasons for the hoaxes, but the consequences are tangible.

The earliest hoaxes concerned Air Serbia planes flying between Belgrade and Moscow. The situation gradually escalated, and now bomb hoaxes are made almost every day, targeting hundreds of schools, retail centres, bridges, railway stations and even hospitals and the Belgrade Zoo. The threats are sent to the email addresses of the respective institutions, the places are then evacuated and their operation is stalled. Schools sometimes switch to online learning. All bomb threats have been fake so far.

Last week, the authorities reported that 19 email addresses have been identified from which bomb hoaxes have been made. Eight threats have been sent from Poland, four from The Gambia, two from Iran and Nigeria each, and one from Ukraine, Slovenia and Russia each, the Serbian Interior Ministry said.

Interior Minister: It's a Form of Contemporary Terrorism

Aleksandar Vulin, the Interior Minister of Serbia, admitted that the threats cannot be stopped and compared the situation with the coronavirus crisis. "We have to live with these threats," Vulin said, noting that it is physically impossible to check several thousand locations per day.

"This is a kind of psychological warfare, contemporary terrorism. It is scary. The threats cannot be stopped, all we can do is step up prevention," the Interior Minister said on Prva Srpska Televizija.

He described the situation as a terrorist threat against all of Serbia. According to him, the reason for a fake bomb threat is often said to be the fact that Belgrade has not adopted sanctions against Moscow over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic believes that the numerous explosives warnings are a form of pressure from abroad on account of Belgrade's refusal to impose sanctions against Moscow.

An EU candidate country, Serbia is also a traditional ally of Russia and maintains close political and military relations with Moscow.

In April, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic accused Ukraine and an unnamed EU Member State of being behind a series of bomb hoaxes against Air Serbia planes flying between Belgrade and Moscow. Ukraine rejected the accusation as unfounded.

Opinions of Experts and Analysts

Experts and analysts also link the surge of fake bomb threats in Serbia to the question about the sanctions against Russia.

Goran Mandic, a security studies professor at the University of Belgrade, told the Serbian Service of BBC that the bomb hoaxes first swept the country when it became clear that Serbia will not adopt sanctions against Russia.

According to Sasa Zivanovic of the Belgrade-based Security Management Institute, Serbia's stance on the sanctions against Russia is the most likely reason for the fake bomb threats. Interviewed by N1 television, Zivanovic noted that the messages are not sent by ordinary people because they could be caught easily. The threats are obviously sent by computer-savvy individuals who take advantage of the anonymity of the Internet. Moreover, such emails can be sent from any country around the globe, which makes them difficult to track by the Serbian special services, the expert said.

Giorgio Fruscione, an analyst at the Milan-based Institute for International Political Studies, commented for Radio Free Europe that the hoaxes can be linked indirectly to the conflict in Ukraine, given that Serbia is always said to be under pressure from the EU as well as Russia. Fruscione said: "A situation of general danger has been created to prove that Serbia has no choice, that it should reckon with the EU and adopt sanctions against Russia. This exempts the Serbian authorities from direct responsibility as they sell the story that the government is forced to make a choice."

Consequences of the Surge of Bomb Hoaxes

None of the bomb threats has been real, and yet, they have inflicted pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage on Serbia. As soon as the first fake warnings appeared, Interior Minister Vulin described them as an economic attack on Serbia.

Security expert Goran Mandic also drew attention to this aspect of the bomb hoaxes, saying that they were causing huge financial losses by forcing airports and retail centres to suspend operation, engaging special police forces to handle the threats, and interrupting classes.

Every report about an explosive device sends police to the site, causes an evacuation of the place and entails a search. This is depleting the system, cybersecurity expert Adel Abusara warned in an interview with Deutsche Welle. "You cannot have enough people to respond to a hundred fake bomb messages every day," Abusara commented.

The avalanche of bomb threats targeting schools has disrupted the learning process, which had just reverted to in-person classes as the COVID-19 outbreak faded. The threats have stressed out students, parents and teachers alike. The Education Ministry proposes compensating for the loss of learning time by reducing the learning content, prolonging school studies or in some other way which the school authorities may find appropriate.