On September 7, around 16,000 people gathered in Belgrade, Serbia for the funeral of former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladić, “the Butcher of Bosnia”.
Mladić commanded the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992–95 Bosnian War. He exercised overall control over the forces involved in the Srebrenica operation, where more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in July 1995. After nearly 16 years as a fugitive, he was arrested on May 26 2011, and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted Mladić of genocide in 2017 for his role in Srebrenica, in addition to persecution and extermination of Bosniaks and Croats, terrorising Sarajevo through shelling and sniper attacks, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage. Mladić was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in The Hague, the Netherlands on August 27 2026, at age 84.
Despite his international conviction, Mladić retained significant support in Serbia and was protected by Serbian authorities for years, helping him evade justice for nearly 16 years.
Mladić’s body was flown from the Netherlands to Serbia on a Serbian government plane, covered with national flags and removed from the aircraft by uniformed soldiers, and the convoy from the airport was greeted by supporters carrying Mladić banners and lighting smoke flares. His coffin, draped in Serbian and Republika Srpska flags, was placed in state at the Orthodox Church of St Luke in Belgrade, before being buried at Topcider Cemetery with military honors, including a three-volley Serbian Army salute.
It is important to note that, while the ceremony involved official Serbian symbols, officials, transport and military personnel, the funeral was not a formal state funeral. Attendees included Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic, Minister without Portfolio Nenad Popovic and Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs Minister Milica Djurdjevic Stamenkovski, as well as Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik and Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandar Bocan-Harchenko.
However, this significant government support sparked international controversy: European Commission officials warned that the funeral could have consequences for Serbia’s EU accession process, while Turkey, Montenegro, and Croatia condemned the glorification of Mladić and the denial of human suffering. Bosnia and Herzegovina expelled two Serbian embassy staff members and alerted that Serbia’s leadership risked “complete isolation in the region.”
In addition to the political turmoil sparked by Mladic’s funeral, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić dissolved Parliament on September 9 and called early elections for October 25, 2026, saying they would “demonstrate and determine the will of the citizens” regarding Serbia’s direction after nearly two years of protests.