The current ACM chairperson is Milica Pejanovic – Djurisic, a long-time official of the once ruling DPS, former minister of defence and a reputable senior diplomat. The activities of the ACM are realised through three centres of which the Digital Forensic Center (DFC) comes to the fore. DFC was founded in 2018 and has released a number of publications on Russian malign influence, mainly from the view point of DPS

Last week (3-4 Oct) the 14th To Be Secure Forum Montenegro (2BS) took place in Hotel Splendid in Becici – Budva, under the auspices of the Atlantic Council of Montenegro (ACM). Its website states that 2BS is a leading politico – security conference in Southeast Europe. This year’s topic is World in Disorder: Turning Adversity into Opportunity with a focus on the repercussions and security challenges in the Western Balkans.

The event brought together more than 400 participants including government officials, high-ranking representatives of international organisations and diplomatic missions, and prominent experts in security and international relations. ACM points out that “it has devoted itself to the promotion of Euro-Atlantic values ​​and international security since it was founded in 2006”. In the same year, the ACM became a member of the global Atlantic Charter Association (ATA).

The current ACM chairperson is Milica Pejanovic – Djurisic, a long-time high official of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS). She was also a Minister of Defence and a reputable senior diplomat. The ACM activities are carried out through 3 centres, of which the most exposed is the Digital Forensic Center (DFC) founded in 2018. DFC has released a number of publications on the subject of Russian malign influence, mainly from the view point of DPS. Allegedly, the DFC was founded in order to “fight against disinformation, fake news and propaganda campaigns aimed at destabilising democratic processes in Montenegro and the Western Balkans.”

The founder of the 2BS Forum and the DFC is Savo Kentera from Budva. He chaired the Montenegrin Atlantic Council from 2008 until May 2022, when the minority government of PM Dritan Abazovic (supported by DPS in the national assembly) appointed him to head the National Security Agency (NSA). Mr Kentera lasted little less than 5 months. As soon as the 12th 2BS Forum in Becici was over, he was sacked by the government following the DPS termination of support to Abazovic after he signed signed the controversial Concordat with the Serbian Church (SOC). Prior to his sacking Mr Kentera launched an NSA operation against Russian spy network, allegedly in cooperation with international partners and the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO). Two Montenegrin citizens were arrested, 6 Russian diplomats were expelled, and 28 foreigners were barred from entering the country.

However, the whole operation turned out to be a farce. Eventually, the two Montenegrins were not accused for espionage. Only one was suspected for illegal possession of weapons. No trial has ever taken place. 

It is worth noting that the 2BS Forum founder (who claims that he supports Euro-Atlantic values) for many years chose the same hotel for the conferences. The founder of Hotel Splendid and its majority owner is now late Viktor Ivanyenko – retired director of the infamous KGB. During his term under President Boris Yeltsin, the service changed its name to the Federal Security Service (FSB). How a state employee and the chief of spies of the Russian Federation (and with money of dubious origin) came to own 4 hotels on the Montenegrin coast was never a reason for any concern, let alone inquiry, while the country was led by so-called  pro-western Milo Djukanovic.

The Russian president Vladimir Putin (who was also at the helm of FSB following Ivanyenko’s retirement) said in 2004 that “ there is no such thing as a former KGB man”. The hotel is known as a meeting place of Russian intelligence and foreign and local business people and/or criminals. One of them, very close to Djukanovic, was put on the US Treasury’s blacklist, while another of his buddies is now under the protection (from going to prison) of Aleksandar Vucic. 

Not only politicians and criminals have links with the Russian intelligence. In the aforesaid hotel on 24 May 2022 the then head of the Montenegrin Church (MOC) Miras Dedeic (The Rt Rev. Mihailo) met with a GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate) colonel Leonid Malofeyev. After a 5-hour meeting the two were photographed together. Mr Malofeyev, whose photographs with the Rt Rev. Mihailo were published by Podgorica-based Antena M, appeared in the robes of the Metropolitan of Moscow and All of Russia of The True Orthodox Church of Russia under the monastic name of Seraphim.

The aforementioned religious organisation (which is one of the proxies of the Russian intelligence) has developed deep ties with the MOC, including financial ones, according to critics of Bishop Mihailo. On the other hand, the Serbian Church has never even tried to conceal its non-spiritual ties with the Moscow Patriarchate. Based on the briefly opened state archives after the collapse of the USSR, the current Russian Church (ROC) head Kirill Gundyayev, is also a KGB agent who was later awarded tax free business with alcohol and cigarettes.

Much has already been published and circulated about substantial financial and political support of Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs to the project of independent Montenegro. Published audio conversations (covertly recorded) of the then Serbia and Montenegro ambassador to Russia Milan Rocen (and a long time confidante of Milo Djukanovic) have shed a new light on the Russian role in Montenegro’s independence drive. The release of heretofore unpublished recordings were recently heralded by the pro-Russian outlet IN4S. However, the publication of contents which could be potentially harmful to the DPS was stopped – allegedly on orders from the Russian embassy.

Under the DPS and its leader Djukanovic, Montenegro became one of the hubs for Russian spies and Russian organised crime in Southeast Europe. The western press and official reports of the western governments constantly warned about the Russian influence in Djukanovic’s fiefdom. Moreover, in 2011, the DPS signed a strategic agreement with Putin’s United Russia which has never been revoked. The DPS was recently challenged in the Montenegrin parliament to revoke the agreement with the United Russia. However, a DPS MP indirectly ruled it out.

In March 2023, a Russian opposition paper Novaya Gazeta and Transparency International, published a detailed report on the continued influx to Montenegro of Russian dirty capital, spies and intelligence experts for cyber warfare in 2019.

The purchase of real estates, including a cultural heritage site protected by law, and the further entrenching of Russian intelligence could not happen without the blessing of the DPS authorities. Back in 2019, Montenegro was already in NATO and claimed that it was on bad terms with the Kremlin due to so-called coup d’etat attempt in the fall of 2016 in the wake of parliamentary elections. The subsequent televised trial turned into a satirical farce resulting in the first-instance acquittal of all the defendants.

Nevertheless, the subsequent reactions of the prime minister show that the conference was rather used to promote Djukanovic again. Furthermore there are allegations of behind-the-stage efforts to broker a coalition deal for power sharing in the capital city of Podgorica with the political forces of the current president, Jakov Milatovic.

Spajic didn’t turn up at the Forum. He tweeted on X that the conference went “contrary to expectations” and became “mainly a platform for the analysis of local Podgorica election results by prominent experts like Djukanovic and Milatovic. They silenced the foreign guests by bickering against their own country.” According to informal sources, the Government has not wired the money yet. 

The quantity and quality of ACM’s cooperation with similar organisations is also questionable, at least when it comes to the promotion of the aforesaid Euro-Atlantic values. Those values should primarily mean support for democracy, the rule of law and fight against organised crime.

In communication with our paper, the director of the European Center of the Atlantic Council of the USA, Jorn Fleck, emphasises that the ACM and the American Atlantic Council are two completely different organisations. As for the activities of the US Atlantic Council in Montenegro, Fleck says that “one of the Europe Center’s nonresident fellows attended the Western Balkans Growth Summit in May in Kotor. The same fellow was invited by event organisers to attend the inauguration of President Milatovic”. Furthermore, “in 2019, the Atlantic Council took a delegation of Congressional Staffers to the region, including a stop in Montenegro”.

The Grechin case raises doubts that good statistics on fighting organised crime are more important than the fight itself. The prosecutor claims it’s a trafficking in women case whereas the allegedly trafficked women and the defence claim the opposite

Montenegro can hardly escape serious criticism in periodic reports on human rights violations and organised crime published by competent international organisations. However, the inadequate fight against human trafficking is the most serious objection. The State Department (SD) released the latest global report on human trafficking four days ago in Washington D.C. with highlights made by the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. When it comes to Montenegro in particular the report says “the Government does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so.” However, “the government demonstrated overall increasing efforts” compared to very bad 2023; thus Montenegro was upgraded to Tier 2 countries.

One of the “increasing efforts”, although not mentioned in the report, could be the case of a US citizen Vitaliy Grechin and his three friends, two Ukrainians – Oleksandar Lishchynsky and Oleksii Blahoslavov and one Russian – Bogdan Petrov. The case raises suspicion that another fixing of statistics with technical/cosmetic embellishments might be in place, which was a common practice during the previous regime. Although the governing power has been changed, the Montenegrin courts, the state prosecution (with exception of the Special Prosecutor’s Office) and the police have remained largely unreformed and staffed with the vetted appointees of the former Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) regime.

The indictment says that in October 2023, Grechin, together with the other three, then “a certain Marko R from Belgrade” and “a photographer Aleksandar from Russia” recruited and transported the victims in an organised manner “for the purpose of sexual exploitation and use for pornographic purposes”. The aforesaid Grechin, Blahoslavov and Petrov bought plane tickets for the girls and waited for them at the airports in Tivat and Podgorica, then transported them to “exclusive hotels and accommodation – villas and Hotel Regent in Porto Montenegro”. It is further claimed that the defendants “organised in advance the unannounced photographing and recording of naked bodies with the aim of sexual exploitation and use for pornographic purposes on (Internet) platforms”. Moreover Petrov was subsequently charged with facilitating the use of narcotics (Article 301 of the Criminal Code) since he had prepared a so-called joint at the request of one of the girls and left it ready for use on her bedroom terrace. The Forensic Centre in Danilovgrad found that the cigarette contained 0.06 grams of cannabis, while further 0.2 grams of cannabis remains were found on the grinder.

The topic is a very delicate one and requires a careful examination before jumping to conclusions. According to the case files, which the Monitor had access to, not a single girl believes she has been “rescued” by Montenegrin police. Out of 15 girls who gave statements before the prosecutor, 10 girls had serious objections to the behaviour of police officers. In the statements (made in November 2023, January and February 2024) the “rescued” girls described the Montenegrin police treatment of them as “rude”, “terrible” and “cruel”. They complained that they were “refused a lawyer”, denied a copy of their statement. They object to the official interpreters’ bias and deliberate mistranslation. Several of them said they were kept without food and water for hours, while one described how “a police officer hit the wall above my head when I wanted to say something”. Another said that “at the hotel they examined our bodies by undressing us in front of men” thus making her “morally and physically humiliated”. The police “kept us for 12 hours without food or drink and gave us no explanation” for such a treatment. Another girl described how the police officers “took us to the hotel to pick our things and were pulling us by our shirts, I felt malice and injustice”. One girl complained that “the police wrote down what I did not say” and that she signed the statement under pressure.

The only girl out of 18 alleged victims who joined the criminal prosecution against Gretchin is MM from Israel. One of Grechin’s lawyers, Nebojsa Golubovic, requested the court at the pre-trial hearing to exclude her statement from the case files because she consented to press the charges against Grechin at the time when the prosecutor was alone with her, without presence of the defence lawyers – which is against the law. The court records show that MM was interrogated without any lawyer being present on November 1, 2023, from 10:39 PM to 11:00 PM. In a recent telephone interview with the Monitor MM said that she had signed the statement “under pressure from the prosecutor and the police” having already been held for 6 hours. They wouldn’t allow her to call her parents. She says that no one translated what she was signing and that she was told that she could contact her parents only after she signed the statement. MM says that she doesn’t consider herself “rescued” by Montenegro’s police whereas Grechin is her longtime friend. Several other girls confirmed the same, saying that they came to Montenegro freely and that they had documents and money with them all the time and that they could move around freely. Some of them came with their parents and children to Montenegro several times and showed photos from 2023 and preceding years as a proof.

So far the HPO has not reacted to the accusations. The Monitor was told that a legal representative of 13 girls would soon file criminal charges against the police, both for inhuman treatment and for confiscating money, valuables and electronic devices from the girls. The Monitor also reached out a couple of local organisations that are specialised in protection of vulnerable groups and women’s rights. Both organisations refused to comment on the case files and/or get officially involved so as to monitor the proceedings.

The prosecutor in charge does admit in the indictment that, except for one, “the other witness statements (14 out of 15) do not correspond with the material evidence”, which raises the question of identification of human trafficking victims. The HPO refers to the statement of the European Court of Human Rights that “the victims themselves are often not aware that they are victims”. In this case, the public prosecutor claims that “in the case of existing material evidence – i.e. photographs and recordings obtained through searches of electronic devices, the inconsistency of their statements must be interpreted as the fear of the consequences of the proceedings and as the fear of the defendants themselves”. The prosecutor further points out that “the witnesses who didn’t testify in favour of the defendants, and even the witness who has joined the criminal prosecution, together with the witnesses who testified in favour of the defendants, eventually submitted their authorisation for use of the aforementioned photographs and recordings”. That was done “through the defendants’ attorneys and not through their appointed (by the prosecutor) attorney”.

The defence lawyers reject the prosecutor’s reasoning as in that line of work the so-called release forms are almost always signed when the photos are accepted for publication. This can be verified on the websites of several big photography agencies which provide similar services.

The prosecutor also claims that the material found in electronic devices has “explicit” and “pornographic” content. The allegation is pretty questionable though as it makes no distinction between pornography and erotica. Among the “evidence” are photos published in renowned American erotic magazine Playboy (Russian-language edition), for which Grechin and internationally awarded photographer Oleksandar Lischynsky worked for many times. Lischynsky lives in the Netherlands and erotic art photography is his specialty. Besides Playboy, he had his photographs published in other similar magazines, and on websites. He also held exhibitions in Germany and other EU countries. Some of the presented Playboy editions of 2019 and 2020 have bylines of Lischynsky (as a photographer) and Grechin (as a spatial designer).

One of Grechen’s attorneys Mr Vuk Jaredic submitted to the court the analysis of Dr Nikola Markovic PhD, a court expert in the field of art history – fine and applied arts. Dr Markovic made the report at the request of Mr Jaredic. He states that “when it comes to the aforesaid material, it is clearly visible that the author (Lischynsky) carefully and responsibly avoided any display of pornography or any content that ultimately could be noticed and recognised for explicit display or sexual organs or other sexual acts”. He further states that “it is clear that the aforesaid photographic material was not created for the purpose of any sexual gratification, but rather it was the author’s endeavour for an aesthetic solution whereby he tries to express his creative approach”. 

Another court expert (for copyrights) Professor Miodrag Jovanovic PhD drafted his analysis upon Mr Jaredic’s request. Based on the statements of the each girl and their subsequent signed authorisation, he says that it proceeds that “the photographs and recordings made on 30 October 2023 are the authorship and intellectual property of Oleksandar Lischynsky”. Furthermore ”he had the absolute right to distribute, sell, give away and publish the aforesaid photographs and recordings, and to transfer the rights to third parties” concludes Professor Jovanovic.

Copies of the Playboy magazine were handed by the defence attorneys to the then chairman of the High Court in Podgorica Mr Boris Savic at the pre-trial hearing (for control and review of the indictment) on 14 May this year. Public prosecutor Ana Kalezic did not turn up at the hearing. The defendants and their attorneys vehemently opposed the allegations in the indictment and asked the High Court chairman to reject the indictment as the deeds described therein do not constitute the criminal offence of human trafficking. The four have been in the pre-trial detention for eight months now.

Based on the Ministry of Interior’s decision signed by Radovan Popovic, deputy minister and head of the Directorate for Administrative Affairs, Citizenship and Foreigners, it appears that Belarus is a democratic country where life is safe and full of opportunities. Popovic in his decision UP I-132/23-6651/3 dated 5 June 2024, has rejected the request for international protection filed by V.I (citizen of Belarus) because “there is no justified fear of persecution” in his home country

The High Court in Belgrade recently ruled again that Andrei Gnyot, a Belarusian film director, journalist and opposition activist, should be extradited to the totalitarian regime in Minsk based on the Interpol warrant issued by Belarus. He was arrested at the Belgrade airport on 30 October last year where he flew from Thailand. He was immediately taken into extradition custody to the Central Prison (CZ) in Belgrade. He left Belarus in June 2021 upon learning that Aleksandar Lukashenko‘s notorious KGB secret service was ready to go after him for his ties to the opposition. Gnyot is formally wanted for tax evasion amounting to around 300 thousand euros. He never received a hearing summon on the tax evasion accusations in the country. He allegedly committed tax evasion between 2012 and 2018 even though the law that regulates the matter was passed only in 2019. Gnyot rejected those accusations as “politically motivated”. He is one of the founders of the Free Association of Sportsmen of Belarus (FASB), which was set up after the rigged presidential elections in the summer of 2020, which caused massive civic protests and subsequent bloody repression by the regime whose closest ally is Putin’s Russia. FASB led an international campaign which resulted in disqualifying Belarus as the World Hockey Championship host. Moreover, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended the financing of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee (BNOC) chaired by President Lukashenko himself of which the Monitor already wrote about. The dictator took revenge on FASB by declaring it an “extremist organization”. The association’s lawyer, Aleksandar Danilevitch, was sentenced to ten years in prison. Retaliation followed against other members of the association, except Gnyot who managed to escape.

In the first judgment (7 December 2023), the High Court panel decided in favour of Gnyot’s extradition. Shockingly, the panel of judges even made a precedent by refusing to hear Gnyot about the charges against him. In early March of this year, the Court of Appeal overturned the decision and sent it back for a new decision. However, on 13 June, the first instance court pronounced the same verdict. The journalist has already announced he would appeal the decision. The only good news for Gnyot is that his prison detention of seven months was commuted to house arrest and confinement in a 20-square-meter studio apartment in Belgrade. International and local human rights organizations condemned the verdict and called on the authorities of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to end the persecution of political opponents of Minsk and Moscow who have sought refuge in Serbia.

When it comes to Montenegro, one would expect a better situation for asylum seekers, especially after the fall of the 30-year autocratic government of Milo Djukanovic and his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) whose role models were Vladimir Putin and Lukashenko. However, Belarusian national V.I. (who asked not to have his full name disclosed) thought so. However, the Ministry of Interior (MUP) proved him wrong. Radovan Popovic, the deputy interior minister and head of the Directorate for Administrative Affairs, Citizenship and Foreigners, considers Belarus a democratic country where life is safe and full of opportunities. The MUP decision has no mention of the ongoing war against Ukraine in which Belarus indirectly joined Putin by putting at his disposal its military bases, weapons, logistics and territory which served as a springboard for early drive on Kyiv. Popovic in his decision UP I-132/23-6651/3 dated 5 June 2024, rejects the request for international protection to the Belarusian citizen because “there is no justified fear of persecution” in the home country.

V.I., whose family already lawfully resides in Montenegro and runs a successful private business, requested protection upon his arrival in Montenegro on 27 July 2023 because of a threat that Lukashenko’s authorities would imprison him for political activism. Namely, after the disputed presidential elections in the summer of 2020, large protests broke out in the country. The wife of V.I. participated while he stayed aside fearing for the wellbeing of his private construction company. However, when the authorities began to violently break up the protests, V.I “couldn’t stay on the side-lines”. In August 2020 he “recorded a 20-minute video post on YouTube” in which he “publicly announced his position… and supported those who are fighting for free Belarus” and “victory of democracy”. He said that “Lukashenko suppressed the protests by shedding blood” and that “the people should reciprocate in the same way”. After a while, in the spring of 2023, his YouTube post was noticed by the authorities and then V.I.’s problems began. Tax inspections and state controls of his company became frequent for no other apparent reason. Moreover, the bank with which he cooperated for over 10 years suddenly denied him access to loans without explanation. After that, a friend in the KGB told him that the secret service found out about his YouTube video and that the problems with the company were not accidental. In July 2023, he received a phone call from the state security which asked him to come to the premises of the KGB. When asked why, he was told that he would find out upon arrival. He immediately bought a ticket to Istanbul and fled to Montenegro via Turkey, leaving his mobile phone with a SIM card in Minsk in case state security tracked his movements through mobile network towers. Later, he learned from a neighbour in Minsk that Lukashenko’s police came to his house to look for him. Then the police contacted his wife and asked about his whereabouts. She replied that they were not together and that he had left for Russia. V.I. is convinced that if he were to return to Belarus “he would find himself in prison” seeing how the authorities treat other entrepreneurs who expressed their views. The available reports of international organisations and western governments (UN, State Department, EU, HRW, Amnesty Int. etc.) contain many well documented cases of torture in Lukashenko’s prisons. The regime’s common practice is to charge dissenters with treason or rather with bribery/corruption so to be more convincing to the public, both domestic and foreign. Detainees are then forced to “confess their crimes” in front of cameras, as was the case of Roman Protasevitch, a journalist and an opposition activist. He “publicly repented” in front of Lukashenko’s television cameras after he was kidnapped from a Ryanair plane. Namely, Protasevich was on the Athens-Vilnius 4978 flight which he was diverted on 23 May 2021 by the Belarusian authorities under the pretext that a bomb had been placed on the plane. Escorted by a MIG-29 interceptor, the plane was forced to emergency landing in Minsk. The journalist and his Russian girlfriend were snatched away and arrested whereas no reported bomb was found on the plane.

However, all these examples of Protasevitch, Gnyot and over 1,400 political prisoners in Lukashenko’s fiefdom were not convincing enough to Popovic, a close associate of the Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic (a high official of the Democrats of Montenegro) since they “do not meet the requirements of Article 3” of the Asylum Law. Neither the fear of V.I. of what might happen to him if he returns home “prevailed enough” to grant him international protection because “there was no element of persecution”. He is also reproached for not seeking asylum in the first transit country, Turkey, which received 3.5 million refugees from Syria, probably on purpose, overlooking that the applicant’s family already lived in Montenegro with a lawful residence and a successful family business. He wouldn’t be a financial liability to the state if he were allowed to stay with his family in the country of refuge.

Popovic claims in the decision he signed, that in accordance with the Geneva Convention and the Directive on Asylum Procedures, “a country is considered safe when, within the framework of its democratic system, there is generally and permanently no persecution, no torture or inhumane treatment…threats of violence”. Nonetheless “even though, to a certain extent, there are violations of human rights in Belarus”, the MUP finds out that V.I. “can return unhindered to the country of origin, and that his life, freedom and security would not be endangered by his return”. Popovic further elaborates that Belarus is an “industrially developed country” and that its main trade partner is Russia, stressing that natural gas largely transits from Russia to the EU (through Belarus). Popovic praises the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline… from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea which was completed in 2021 and “is a factor that has a direct impact on the Belarusian economy”. Popovic apparently forgets that Nord Stream 2 has been closed and partly blown up after the beginning of invasion of Ukraine. He doesn’t bother to explain what the gas pipeline has to do with fate of V.I. if he would return home. Popovic also praises Belarus for receiving 2,915 refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR, 143 asylum seekers and over 6 thousand stateless persons. It highlights the successes of the Lukashenko regime in the fight against human trafficking and commends Belarus for being one of the 152 countries that voted for the adoption of the Global Security Agreement. Therefore “in accordance with the above, this institution has concluded that the conditions set forth to constitute persecution in the sense of Article 1A of the Geneva Convention have not been met”. Furthermore, the statement of V.I. makes it “clear that he did not experience persecution given that his allegations are not that egregious” to constitute a serious violation of human rights. It appears that it would be better for V.I. that he first experienced torture in prison as that might convince Popovic (who is also a lecturer at the Police Academy in Danilovgrad) that he was is in danger.

The leader of the Belarusian opposition Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has been informed about the Montenegrin MUP’s reasoning and denial of asylum. She herself had to flee the country after the Minsk regime refused to recognize her victory in the presidential elections in 2020. Her husband was already in prison before the elections. She was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison by Lukashenko’s court. Many democratic governments recognize her as the country’s legitimate leader. Her staff told the Monitor that the opposition in exile had proposed to President Jakov Milatovic and Prime Minister Milojko Spajic to meet with Tsikhanouskaya several times after she had previously met with the governments of Greece and Albania. No response ever came from Montenegro.

Fortunately for V.I. he can appeal Radovan Popovic’s decision before the Administrative Court of Montenegro. V.I. still hopes that he will not have to face the democracy and justice of Lukashenko’s government.

Jovo MARTINOVIĆ