Weaponised Victimhood: Arsenijevic’s Lie Machine
For nearly two years, Western silence and diplomatic photo-ops have emboldened Aleksandar Arsenijevic, turning a known provocateur into a legitimised actor of Kremlin-style destabilisation.
In the tumultuous politics of northern Kosovo, Aleksandar Arsenijevic has emerged as a master manipulator, camouflaging subversion beneath a cloak of democratic rhetoric. Known colloquially as "Aco Ludi" or "Aco the Madman," Arsenijevic has, in the years following the disintegration of Milan Radoicic’s armed networks, positioned himself as the new vanguard of Belgrade-aligned destabilisation efforts. Where Radoicic failed to deliver a Russian-styled annexation of northern Kosovo in the September 24, 2023 Banjska attacks1, Arsenijevic stepped forward with calculated provocations, utilising psychological warfare, political theatre, and strategic public relations to agitate, destabilise, and delegitimise Kosovo’s institutions.
The tactics are not new
They follow the Kremlin’s manual for hybrid warfare: provoke ethnic tension, record the chaos, edit for Western audiences, and broadcast a narrative of Serb victimhood. The results are predictable. Violence erupts, Kosovo’s law enforcement intervenes, and Arsenijevic appears with smartphone in hand, ready to frame the situation as institutional repression. This was precisely the strategy deployed on May 23, 2025, during the high school graduation parade in northern Mitrovica. While some Serbian students displayed nationalist symbols and shouted chauvinist slogans like “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia,” Kosovo Police acted professionally to de-escalate the tensions. Nonetheless, Arsenijevic, quick to weaponise the incident, accused officers of assaulting students and turned the episode into a political stage.
In a short video posted on social media by Kosovo’s Minister of Interior Xhelal Sveçla2, a disturbing scene unfolds: a crowd of Kosovo Serb students, draped in T-shirts emblazoned with Serbian ultranationalist symbols, dances to Chetnik songs while chanting “Kosovo je srce Srbije” (“Kosovo is the heart of Serbia”). Any reasonable observer should be compelled to ask: What is broken in a society that raises its children to glorify the genocidal ideologies of their forefathers? Just 25 years ago, those forefathers were slaughtering, raping, burning, and ethnically cleansing the very people whose streets these children now mock with their chants. These are not innocent expressions of identity; they are deliberate provocations, sharpened weapons of intergenerational trauma. And yet, where is the outrage from the so-called guardians of democracy? Where is the moral clarity from Western diplomats who, instead of condemning this orchestrated spectacle of hate, shake hands with the man behind it Aleksandar Arsenijevic? This is not diplomacy; it is appeasement. It is complicity in the slow, methodical erosion of Kosovo’s fragile peace.
This is the hallmark of Arsenijevic’s strategy: ignite, film, manipulate. It is classic Russian-styled disinformation, localised in the Balkans. His post3 on the incident was followed by a propaganda blitz across his social media and Belgrade-aligned outlets like KoSSev.
In the second video4 circulated by Arsenijevic, a peculiar sequence unfolds that raises more questions than it answers. The footage, captured by a filmmaker positioned at a strategic vantage point, begins with a sweeping view of the crowd before the camera curiously zooms in on an individual seated at a nearby café, well before the man makes any noticeable movement. As if by prescience, the filmmaker fixes the lens on him moments before he stands and raises his hands to form the symbol of the Albanian double-headed eagle. The timing is uncanny, suggesting either an improbable coincidence or prior coordination. Even more curiously, the footage later disseminated by Arsenijevic himself is used to assert that this solitary gesture triggered the so-called provoked reaction from the Serbian students. However, a closer, frame-by-frame analysis reveals a different reality: by the time the man raises the symbol, the main body of students had already marched past, far removed from the line of sight needed to perceive the gesture. This discredits Arsenijevic’s claim of provocation and instead exposes a carefully curated narrative designed to manufacture ethnic outrage, one that appears orchestrated more for political theatre than for truth.
The same pattern played out previously during the violent clashes with NATO's KFOR forces in May 2023, which left over 30 peacekeepers injured. Intelligence sources cited by The Frontliner Magazine indicated that Arsenijevic, though not officially charged, was among the organisers of provocations in the run-up to the Banjska attacks.
Crucially, Arsenijević’s influence is not confined to social media or local agitation. In a calculated diplomatic push, he has repeatedly met with Western officials5. On February 7, 2024, he met U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo Jeffrey Hovenier to discuss the EU Fund model proposed by his party, Srpska Demokratija. A day later, on February 8, he hosted members of the German Bundestag and German Ambassador Jorn Rohde. On March 13, he met with U.S. Special Envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar. Escobar, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, was a key figure in the U.S.-brokered Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. However, following The Frontliner Magazine’s investigative findings6 revealing potential conflicts of interest, including familial financial ties to Serbian-linked institutions and a lack of transparency in addressing these allegations, Escobar was dismissed from his position. And in August 2023, he met with UK diplomats Peter Wilson and Nicholas Abbott. These engagements, posted publicly on his X account (@Aco_Sfens), serve to legitimise his role in the eyes of his followers, while allowing him to falsely portray himself as an internationally recognised representative of Kosovo Serbs.
This false legitimacy is deeply dangerous. Each diplomatic photo-op is recycled in propaganda loops to undermine Pristina’s credibility and bolster the illusion of persecution against Serbs. These meetings serve as tacit endorsements, emboldening Arsenijevic’s narrative and demoralising local Albanians and moderate Serbs who seek coexistence.
His connections run deeper than politics. Investigations by The Frontliner Magazine and Gunpowder Chronicles7 have confirmed Arsenijevic’s links to Danijel (Dejan) Djukic, a fugitive wanted for drug trafficking and implicated in the Banjska attacks. The Sfens Caffe Pub in Mitrovica, tied to Arsenijevic both by locals and his own social media alias, is believed to be a hub for political coordination. Djukic, allegedly the real owner, has been photographed with the son of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and identified as a member of "Civil Defence," designated a terrorist group by the Kosovar government. Arsenijevic’s failure to condemn these ties is telling.
While he professes opposition to Kremlin influence, Arsenijevic's methods betray a deep understanding of Russian psychological operations. His media campaigns evoke the strategy of "maskirovka"8, sowing confusion, distorting facts, and concealing hostile intentions. This was on full display in his attempt to discredit a 2024 image of him wielding an AK-47. A film director, Nenad Todorovic, emerged to claim the image was from a decade-old anti-war film. Yet the timing of this revelation, alongside Arsenijevic’s history of militant posturing, undermines the credibility of such defences.
Even more problematic is the local support he enjoys from influential figures like Berat Buzhala, whose media outlet Nacionale leapt to Arsenijevic’s defence, ridiculing investigative reports that exposed his affiliations. Buzhala’s selective amplification of Arsenijevic’s narrative, and his eagerness to discredit critics, suggest a deeper alignment with destabilising forces under the guise of journalistic neutrality.
Kosovo cannot afford such obfuscation. The actions of Western diplomats in engaging Arsenijevic, however well-intentioned, provide oxygen to a narrative that delegitimises Kosovo’s institutions and empowers a faction openly aligned with irredentist ambitions. Arsenijevic’s rhetoric, actions, and affiliations reveal a concerted effort to resurrect the narrative of Serb victimhood in a multiethnic Kosovo, mirroring the justifications used by Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s.
The threat is real and growing. Aleksandar Arsenijevic is not a misunderstood advocate for civil rights but a practitioner of ideological subversion, a facilitator of ethnic division, and a dangerous vector of Kremlin-style destabilisation in the Western Balkans. By naming him, exposing his networks, and demanding accountability from those who enable him whether they sit in Washington, Berlin, Belgrade, or Pristina, Kosovo and its allies can begin to dismantle the machinery of manipulation that seeks to unravel its fragile democracy. To do otherwise is to surrender the narrative, and the future, to those who profit from chaos.
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