War veterans in camp outside Serbian Presidency

The men were initially identified as veterans of the Special Operations Unit (JSO) whose commander and senior officers are in jail for the assassination of the late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic because of the red berets on their heads but were later identified as veterans of a similar unit formed in the Krajina area of Croatia during the war of the 1990s by a convicted war criminal who wore identical berets. Members of that unit formed by Dragan Vasiljkovic whose nome de guerre was Kapetan Dragan were later transferred to the Serbian State Security Service (RDB)’s JSO. Their berets look similar to berets worn by the Serbian military’s elite parachute brigade whose veterans have been seen regularly at student protests and standing at attention for the 15 Minutes of Silence tribute to the victims of the Novi Sad Railway Station tragedy.

‼️ Još jedan koji voli da bije.
Da ga učinimo poznatim. pic.twitter.com/wW2dGx0SDc

— Milena (@MilenaNLJ) March 11, 2025

‼️ Još jedan koji voli da bije.
Da ga učinimo poznatim. pic.twitter.com/wW2dGx0SDc

Social media videos showed one of the men lashing out with a metal cane at a passerby standing on the other side of a fence erected to stop protesters getting into the camp which was put up by alleged students who want the protests to end.

About a dozen men accompanied the man with the cane, shouting abuse at the smaller group of passersby. One of the men making threats was identified from a video of a nationalist gathering attended by Vojvodina provincial government deputy chief Sandra Bozic.