The war in Ukraine has reverberated across the Western Balkans in ways that reflect the region’s own political dynamics more than the influence of any external actor, including Russia. In Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, media coverage and public narratives surrounding the conflict have been shaped primarily by domestic political realities, local media structures, and long-standing identity divides.

The point of departure for this analysis was the idea that spyware, by its nature, is an indiscriminate, comprehensive and covert surveillance tool, structurally incompatible with the principles of necessity, proportionality and targeted data processing.

An analysis of nine far-right Telegram channels from Serbia, conducted during June and July 2025, shows that although these actors are numerically limited, they exert significant influence in spreading nationalist, pro-Russian, and anti-system narratives.

In the past decade, European countries have witnessed a rise in anti-establishment extremism (AEE), which challenges the modern democratic order and offers authoritarian modes of governance as a “solution” to consecutive, overlapping crises.

The Civil Committee for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Whistleblowers strongly condemns the threats directed at journalist Vuk Cvijić, which occurred on December 17 and were allegedly triggered by an article he wrote for the weekly Radar.

Belgrade Centre for Security Policy awards the 2025 "Lighthouse" Award to Irena Joveva, member of the European Parliament from the Republic of Slovenia.

The Integrity Network strongly condemns the appointment of Igor Žmirić as commander of the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ), warning that this move turns one of Serbia’s elite police formations into the President’s personal guard, rather than a service for all citizens.

The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) has launched the Integrity Network initiative, bringing together respected individuals from various spheres of society—police officers, professors, journalists, lawyers, and activists—with the aim of monitoring, documenting, and raising public awareness about cases of state capture at the local level.

Political, media and economic influences of certain actors continue to strongly define the region’s security landscape, concluded participants of the workshop on security and stability impacts in the region, held on 23 October 2025, at the Civic Energy Center (CEC) in North Mitrovica.