The Russian Historical Society (RIO), founded by the Russian Academy of Sciences and some state-owned media outlets in the country, has announced that it will open a representative office in Serbia, and that the Council of the Representative Office will be headed by former head of the Serbian secret service Aleksandar Vulin, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reports.
The Russian Society is headed by Sergei Naryshkin, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia.
Vulin and Naryshki met several times after Russia invaded Ukraine, which preceded the imposition of sanctions by the European Union (EU) on Kremlin officials.
Although a candidate for membership, Serbia did not join the sanctions, maintaining relations with Moscow, for which Vulin was responsible on several occasions.
Two branches of the Russian Historical Society
At a meeting of the Russian Historical Society, held on June 10, a video of which was published on the association's website, it was voted to open branches in seven regions of the Russian Federation, as well as a representative office in Belgrade.
Seven months earlier, on December 13, 2024, the Society's website announced that a representative office had been opened in Serbia, headed by Nebojša Kuzmanović, director of the Archives of Vojvodina, a state institution based in Novi Sad. Vulin's name was not mentioned at the time.
In an interview with Radio Free Europe (RSE), Kuzmanović explains that he heads the Serbian-Russian Historical Society, which is also a branch of the Russian Historical Society.
The members of that representative office are, as he says, historians and archivists from Serbia.
Aleksandar Vulin, as Kuzmanović explains, will lead the second branch of the Russian Historical Society in Serbia, and both associations will cooperate with each other.
"We will cooperate with the association headed by Mr. Aleksandar Vulin. We have been working autonomously since December 2024. Since we are only scientists, I believe that with the entry of politicians, opportunities will open up to improve this work," says Kuzmanović.
RFE/RL sent questions to the Russian Historical Society regarding the opening of a representative office in Serbia and the appointment of Aleksandar Vulin as its head, but no response was received by the time of writing.
There was no response from Aleksandar Vulin, to whom RFE/RL also sent questions.
What is the Russian Historical Society and what does it do?
The Russian Historical Society is an association whose founders include, among others, the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as Russian state media such as RIA Novosti and Interfax.
The institution is headed by Sergei Naryshkin, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. Naryshkin has been on the United States' "blacklist" since 2014 as a Russian government official for "involvement in the situation in Ukraine."
Among the activities of the Russian Historical Society, as Naryshkin stated in an interview with the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" in May 2023, is the restoration of a museum on the territory of "Novorossiya", which is the term used by the Kremlin for the territory of Ukraine occupied by Russia in a military invasion.
As the main task of the restored museums, Sergei Naryshkin cites the presentation of "testimonies to the heroism of the defenders of Novorossiya" and "preserving the memory of the Special Military Operation", a phrase that Russia uses when talking about aggression against a neighboring country.
The invasion launched by Russia in early 2022 killed more than 12.600 civilians and injured nearly 30.000, according to data from the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission from February 2025. 5,6 million people have fled Ukraine in the previous three years.
"It is necessary to present material evidence of the criminal nature of the Kiev regime, which enjoys enormous support from a whole range of totalitarian-liberal regimes in the West," Naryshkin stated in the same interview.
Jelica Kurjak, former Serbian ambassador to Moscow, says that it is not clear what the Russian Historical Society will do in Serbia, but that the fact that Naryshkin, the head of Russia's Foreign Security Service, is at the RIO's head may serve as an indicator.
"It is clear that by establishing this company, Russia wants to send a message that its services will closely monitor how ready Serbia is to move towards Europe," believes Jelica Kurjak.
When asked by RFE/RL whether the work of the Russian Historical Society in Serbia will be influenced by politics, Nebojša Kuzmanović, head of one of the two RIO branches, said that was out of the question.
"We do not want to deal with politics, but only with science and archival studies. The reason for our cooperation is the mutual interests of historians and archivists of our countries to develop connections. Our role is to find archival documents on the basis of which historical truths are created," says Kuzmanović.
He adds that the idea is to publish significant works by Russian historians in Serbian, as well as to translate books by local historians into Russian.
How did Naryshkin 'warn' Serbia?
The Security Service, headed by Sergei Naryshkin, issued a harsh statement at the end of May, accusing Serbia of continuing to supply ammunition to Ukraine "despite its officially declared neutrality" in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
"That was a warning," says Jelica Kurjak.
In this context, she also interprets the announcement of the establishment of the Russian Historical Society in Serbia.
"Serbia is under intense pressure from the West, primarily regarding the war in Ukraine. I think that at this moment, the establishment of this society is a kind of attempt to send a message to Serbia that Russia also has its interests here and to make it known that the Kremlin will continue to expand its influence," believes Jelica Kurjak.
Serbia has repeatedly supported the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine at the United Nations.
At the Ukraine-Western Balkans Summit this week, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced that Serbia would provide assistance in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.
At the same time, official Belgrade refuses to join Western sanctions against Russia. Serbia is one of the few European countries to maintain close ties with Russia, even after the Kremlin launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Aleksandar Vulin, who was the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Serbia until April 2025 and previously headed the Security and Intelligence Agency (BIA), regularly traveled to Russia and met with officials there.
He also met with Sergei Naryshkin several times.
Their last official meeting was in February 2025. On that occasion, Vulin, as stated in a statement from Vulin's cabinet at the time, informed Naryshkin "that an attempt at a color revolution and destabilization of the Republic of Serbia by Western intelligence services is underway in Serbia."
On that occasion, Naryshkin expressed his satisfaction with the meeting with Vulin as a "proven friend of Russia" and emphasized that Russia supports stability in the Balkans, and that the Serbian people can always count on Russia's support.
In October 2024, Vulin and Naryshkin met again in Moscow. The director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service then highlighted Vulin's "influence on the development of relations between Serbian and Russian services" while he held the positions of Minister of Defense, Minister of Internal Affairs, and Director of the Security and Information Agency.
Precisely for this reason, Jelica Kurjak is not surprised by the election of Aleksandar Vulin as president of the Council of the Representative Office of the Russian Historical Society in Serbia.
"He is a trusted friend of the Russian establishment and their trusted man," says Kuryak.
This trust is confirmed by the decorations Vulin has received in Russia. In January 2024, he received a decoration from Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Federal Security Service.
The State Department placed him on a sanctions list in mid-2023, due to ties to Russia and alleged corruption while he was still head of the Security and Intelligence Agency.
He stepped down from that position in November 2023, after facing alleged pressure from the West.
Vulin was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia in early May 2024, and left that position after the election of the current Government in April 2025.
Aleksandar Vulin did not respond to RFE/RL's inquiry about what activities the Russian Historical Society will engage in in Serbia and why Serbia was chosen as the country in which the association will open a representative office.
Controversial photo on display at Russian Historical Society
In addition to restoring museums in the Russian-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, the Russian Historical Society publishes publications and organizes historiographical conferences. In August 2023, a photo exhibition entitled "NATO War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia" was organized at the House of the Russian Historical Society.
It also displayed a photograph of a NATO bomb with the message "Happy Easter" written on it, which was presented as part of the Alliance's weapons during the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in 1999.
However, RFE/RL's investigation showed that the bomb was photographed at a US base in South Vietnam between 1967 and 1970, decades before the NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia.
The photograph was withdrawn from the exhibition following an inquiry sent to the Society by RFE/RL.
Bonus video:
