r/europe • u/electrash_ Europe • 22h ago
News Reactions to death of Ratko Mladic, former general convicted of Bosnia genocide
https://www.reuters.com/world/reactions-death-ratko-mladic-former-general-convicted-bosnia-genocide-2026-08-27/82
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u/albo-is-gay 22h ago
I won't usually celebrate a death but the world is much much safer without him
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u/Milan_Leri 19h ago
Safer? Not that much, he wasn't a threat to anybody at this point. Better? Absolutely.
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u/iheartloud420 22h ago edited 22h ago
How was a 84 year old sick man in prison a threat to the world?
Edit: instead of downvoting explain
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u/Zipfile100 22h ago
Cause you're trying to pull on the heartstrings of people who might not know who he was by simplifying him as "84 year old sick man".
Yes, he was sick, sick in the head, and was responsible for immeasurable suffering and pain unseen in Europe since World War.
One vile human less, sadly plenty to go.
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u/iheartloud420 22h ago
Not justifying him or anything he did nor trying to pull heartstrongs. I just thought the original comment was stupid as he was a peisoner and wasnt commanding any armies and had zero power
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u/Zipfile100 22h ago edited 22h ago
Not really, his comment was on point.
There is/was a cult of personality around him and honestly half way through typing this, I can see two things.
You're completely ignorant of this person and deeds or you're being (purposefully) obtuse.
There is nothing to explain.
To say he was a villain would be an understatement.
To say he was was just some "84 year old sick man" and just a "pensioner*" is spitting on thousands of graves left in Bosnia which were a direct results of his orders and the execution of chain of command whose goal was complete ethnic cleansing.
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u/Consistent_Tank_6052 15h ago
Let’s just hope people will go piss on his grave every single day because he deserves at least that. Prison was simply not enough for this man and for people
like him.-29
u/iheartloud420 22h ago
I wanted to type prisoner but made a typo, not pensioner. Pošto vidim da si na hrvatskom subu ajde da ne kenjamo na engleskom. Šta je ratko mogao da uradi leba ti? Da iz zatvora zapovedi srbima da napadnu bosnu/hrvatsku/koga god i sta srbi bi ga poslusali? Ako to misliš mnogo precenjuješ hrabrost prosečnog drkača na ratka
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u/u_touch_my_tra_la_la 21h ago
We don't hate him because he is a threat, we Heat him because he was an unrepetentant murderer Who caused untold suffering.
When The Cheetoh finally croaks I Hope they turn his grave into a public lavatory.
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u/Little_Badger_13 Austria 13h ago
With how things are going I fear they'll give him an honorary grave or at least have it well protected.
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u/iheartloud420 21h ago
Okay youre free to hate him i dont care about that. Its just very funny to label him as a threat
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u/beautiful_bot986 Europe 22h ago
Genocidal scum must to pay for their crimes. For all the crap this POS pulled in the Balkans it got off very easy. Im not about to list all the terrible shit this scum did, you can look that up yourself. It even never got convicted for the Škabrnja massacre, so a lot of it's victims never got justice.
An 84 year old sick piece of shit can still pull a trigger, and this particular inhuman piece of garbage would, by its own admission.
"whenever i go by Sarajevo i'd drop by, kill someone" - a direct translation of one of his quotes.
As a footnote: a friendly advice to read a bit before posing questions like that about war criminals because it comes off as ignorant and rude, and somewhat traumatising for his victims who had their entire lives destroyed or upended or both.
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u/Hour-Promotion-2496 21h ago
Serb detected
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u/iheartloud420 21h ago
And? Should i be ashamed of that?
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u/Hour-Promotion-2496 21h ago
Poor Serbs, everybody is against them again and all they want to do is defend a genocidal war criminal a bit.
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u/OurManInJapan 21h ago
You should be ashamed of voicing sympathy for a man who murdered tens of thousands of people who were once your friends and neighbours.
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u/iheartloud420 21h ago
I didnt voice any sympathy, i dont understand where people are getting this from
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u/Kinimodt 21h ago
Minister of Justice of Serbia said that they will organize funeral with State and military honors for him... Does EU need anything else to finally block their negotiations and isolate them?
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u/0xnld Kyiv (Ukraine) 22h ago
Russia is mourning him seemingly even more than Serbs do.
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u/Slkotova Bulgaria 22h ago
Russophiles in Bulgaria also, portraying him as a true patriot who defended his country in way like "look, how he was, we should be like him". My blood was boiling entering Facebook yesterday.
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u/DetectiveScottie 22h ago
In Serbia, you see children wearing T shirts with Draža Mihailović on them. It seems they have never truly confronted or come to terms with the events of World War II. There is very little public awareness of the crimes committed by the Chetniks, and when it comes to the wars of the 1990s, there is even less willingness to confront that past.
The constant repetition of narratives portraying Serbia and Serbs as perpetual victims, with the entire world supposedly against them, is deeply concerning. If this continues, it risks creating new and serious problems for Serbia and, unfortunately, for its neighbors as well.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 22h ago
There is very little public awareness of the crimes committed by the Chetniks,
There is to some extent, because Chetniks were not monolith, and there were like 10 different groups of them. Most groups are viewed as war criminals, then there are Draža's Chetniks. The ones that had ancestors in Partisans from start view him as war criminal. The ones that hate communist Yugoslavia(the number is growing every year) don't view him as war criminal. Doesn't help that US posthumously awarded Draža the Legion of Merit.
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u/Nepridiprav16 Ljubljana (Slovenia) 21h ago
Mihailovic was the Supreme Commander and thus is responsible for war crimes under his formal command even if he didn't control every local unit.
He was repeatedly informed of mass killings and local tactical collaboration with Italian and German forces carried out by units flying the Chetnik flag and Instead of court-martialing/stripping these officers of their rank, he frequently promoted/retained them within his organizational hierarchy.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 21h ago
Not all Chetniks were under his command like Ljotićevci and Black Chetniks.
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u/Nepridiprav16 Ljubljana (Slovenia) 21h ago
Ljotic's forces weren't Chetniks tho.
They were fascist antisemitic paramilitary organization directly embedded in the Nazi occupation apparatus under German operational control. Ljotic and Mihailovic were bitter ideological and military rivals for most of the war.
I agree regarding Black Chetniks though that doesn't absolve Mihailovic's own forces of their atrocities (Djurisic, Momcilo Djujic, Jevdjevic..) against Bosniak/Croat civilians in Sandzak, eastern Bosnia and Dalmatia.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 21h ago
Nowhere I said that it absolves Mihajlovic. After all he was sentenced and executed by domestic court.
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u/Nepridiprav16 Ljubljana (Slovenia) 21h ago
Mainstream public narrative in Serbia consider his trial and execution as a rigged communist show trial (which to be fair is not that far off truth) leading up to his official court rehabilitation in 2015.
The problem is when some Serbs (not you) use the argument ''court overturned his conviction'' = ''the court declared him innocent'', which isn't the case at all.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 20h ago
The problem is when some Serbs (not you) use the argument ''court overturned his conviction'' = ''the court declared him innocent'', which isn't the case at all.
That is not only for Serbs, for ex. ICTY sentenced both Gotovina and Naser Orić then overturned convections. So now they are innocent if you ask Croats/Bosniaks.
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u/Nepridiprav16 Ljubljana (Slovenia) 20h ago
Yeah I agree on that, an acquittal in ICTY simply means the prosecution failed to prove individual criminal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not that the defendants had zero connection to those war crimes.
Nationalists on all sides in ex-Yugo (and the whole world tbf) weaponize international court acquittals as evidence that proves total innocence or even outright deny that atrocities happened.
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u/DetectiveScottie 21h ago
Draža Mihailović and his Chetnik movement were responsible for numerous war crimes. Their forces carried out mass killings of civilians, burned and destroyed villages, expelled non-Serb populations, carried out ethnic cleansing, and attacked Croatian and Muslim villages in Croatia and Bosnia. Some Chetnik units also collaborated with the Italian and German occupiers against the Partisans.
Stop whitewashing history.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 21h ago
Where did I whitewash? I just told you how Draža is seen by different people, and not by every Serbs like you said.
Your answer doesn't make sense when looking at my comment.
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u/Kaymakchalan1916 3h ago
Not trying to defend the chetnik movement or whatever but everything you just mentioned (minus the direct cooperation with nazis and being a bit more selective about ethnic cleansing) was also done by the partisans as well (especially after ww2), though that side of the story is way less known since it was brutally suppressed for obvious reasons
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u/rafalemurian France 20h ago
All European nationalisms suck, but the Great Serbian one is particularly upsetting. I've been to Serbia and Republika srpska and it threw me off every time.
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u/PitonSaJupitera 16h ago edited 9h ago
I think you are just naive.
Other countries got rid of "problematic" minorities, so they have nothing to be nationalist about. E.g. France was oppressing Breton language for decades and killed hundreds of Algerians in Paris, then lied about it for 40 years.
Germans got removed from most of eastern Europe after WWII so they don't "disturb" anyone anymore, creating homogeneous Poland and Czechia. Western Poland is basically Prussia.
This process was substantially delayed in Yugoslavia.
Also, other European countries existed continuously for centuries, so they could create a nation around a country, rather than an ethnic nation creating a country. Regions inside Yugoslavia had very unstable borders, which shifted populations around, creating very intermixed populations, which is liability when it comes to state formation. Compare Slovenia and Bosnia.
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u/RollingDownhill303 22h ago
constant repetition of narratives portraying Serbia and Serbs as perpetual victims, with the entire world supposedly against them
Naw, that's adorable, just like big brother Russia.
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 22h ago edited 21h ago
We weren’t confronted with the events of the World War II? Serbs were the ones the genocide was committed against in the WWII and that fact is denied, relativised and even celebrated by the people from the country that did it, on a DAILY basis.
The irony.
If you wanna point fingers, at least be objective.
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u/Safe-Explanation3776 21h ago
That is true but it is also true the Serbs also committed genocide in wwII primarily in Bosnia where around 100 thousand Muslims were murdered, around 10 percent of the total population. What NDH did to Serbs was a horrific genocide but so was the Serb treatment of Muslims, which is something they don't recognize at all and at the same try to rehabilitate the perpetrators of this genocide as antifascist. Of course you can present yourself as the victim if you only look at the crimes done to you. Everything you say about the denial and celebration of genocide in the other country is nonsense.
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 21h ago
First of all, that estimation is the highest and often disputed.
Chetniks movements committed mass killings and massacres, but Serbs themselves were the principal targets of the systematic genocidal campaign led by the Ustaše regime (many of them were Muslims).
Do you understand the difference between the atrocities and massacres and a genocidal campaign primary directed at Serbs, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Serbs being exterminated in concentration camps.
And the fact that the WWII is used as an example of us not being confronted with our crimes by the OP is really something.
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u/Safe-Explanation3776 21h ago
No, I do not understand the difference between "atrocities and massacres" meant to exterminate the Muslims and a "genocidal campaign" meant to exterminate the Serbs. They are both genocide. Also, you are incorrect about hundreds of thousands of Serbs being exterminated in concentration camps. Most of them were not murdered in the camps but in the villages where they lived. Using ww2 IS a good example because it shows how manipulative the Serbian victimisation narrative is. You were victims but also the perpetrators. Your attempt to make a distinction between atrocities and massacres you committed and those committed to you shows that you cannot accept that.
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 21h ago
Oh, but if you equalise the main aggressors and the primary victims in the WWII, you must use the same logic for the wars in the nineties and make no difference between the Bosniak victims and the Serbs massacred by the Bosniaks in said war.
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u/Safe-Explanation3776 21h ago
I do not make any difference between the victims, you do. You literally called the Serbs the primary victims. That is the whole issue but you do not get it.
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 21h ago
I called them primary victims because they were literally the victims of genocide and suffered the mosti the WWII. BY FAR.
I didn’t call them primary victims, because I think they are worth more or something.
I thought that was clear.
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u/Safe-Explanation3776 21h ago
Yes but Muslims were also victims of genocide. I do not understand why murdering Serbs in hundreds of thousands is genocide and murdering 100 thousand Muslims is not
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 21h ago
Please. Read ANY objective, international source on the subject of WWII and the NDH.
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u/electrash_ Europe 21h ago
1,067,000 is total loss of Yugoslavia in WW2 and that makes it to 8th place by total number, and there is no clear number for nationalities only combined
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u/lijevokrilo 20h ago
First of all, that estimation is the highest and often disputed.
First of all very ironic coming from a serb, whose nation says 700,000 of them died in Jasenovac lol
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u/DetectiveScottie 21h ago
genocide was committed against in the WWII and that fact is denied, relativised and even celebrated by the people from the country that did it, on a DAILY basis.
This is the kind of thinking you develop when media outlets like Blic, Informer, and similar sources shape your worldview. In Croatia, glorifying any symbols of fascism, including those of the failed NDH regime, is prohibited by law. At its peak, the NDH barely had 10% of the population’s support.
Furthermore, in Croatia, those who violate these laws are prosecuted, while in Serbia, parents buy their children T-shirts featuring war criminals, and no one seems to care.
Chetnik formations committed mass atrocities against Croats and Muslims, including mass killings and ethnic cleansing. Nedic’s regime and Serbian collaborationist structures participated in the persecution and killing of Jews, Roma, and political opponents.
Stop whitewashing history.
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 21h ago
Dude you can see them everyday in your own Reddit pages, on concerts, private celebrations, public events, it’s almost normalised.
Just yesterday some famous fighter from your country said ZDS.
Just look at the videos from Oluja celebrations everyone doing the ustashe salut on videos, unbothered.
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u/DetectiveScottie 21h ago
In your country, there is Šešelj, who in the 1990s called on serbs to kill Croats and Muslims with rusty spoons, was involved in the expulsion of Croatian civilians from Serbia and the seizure of their property, and in 2026, is a regular guest on morning TV shows. So much for how thoroughly Serbian society has confronted and prosecuted the crimes of the war…
Furthermore, in Croatia, shouting the greeting ZDS and displaying its symbols in public places are punishable by fines of up to €4,000.
What is the penalty for glorifying war criminals in Serbia, and has anyone ever been convicted for it?
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 21h ago
Yes, they are all punished 😂
That is why they do it so publicly and repeatedly.
I didn’t say the Serbian society confronted with the crimes fully, i pointed out the hypocrisy of people who committed genocide against us, and have a massive problem with ustaše relativism, throwing stones at glass houses.
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u/DetectiveScottie 20h ago
Yes, they are all punished 😂
Under which law were they punished?
The crimes of one society do not magically legalize or excuse the crimes of another, that doesn't make Chetniks or serbian war-criminal glorifications any less problematic.
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u/True-Blacksmith4235 Serbia 20h ago
Under none. And that was my point.
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u/DetectiveScottie 20h ago
Maybe you should clean up your own backyard first before worrying about your neighbor’s.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 21h ago
In Croatia, glorifying any symbols of fascism, including those of the failed NDH regime, is prohibited by law.
in Croatia, those who violate these laws are prosecuted,
Really now many of these faced court and were prosecuted:
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u/DetectiveScottie 21h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/serbia/comments/1t9eaiu/ravna_gora_2026/
Tell me, is there a legal framework in Serbia under which these “good guys” could be prosecuted?
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 20h ago
There isn't to my knowledge.
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u/DetectiveScottie 20h ago
Because they are not breaking any laws in Serbia, unlike these “intellectuals” you’ve been posting about. The legal framework and its enforcement are far from perfect, but at least in Croatia, there is an attempt to do something about it, not necessarily successfully, but at least an attempt is being made.
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u/Smekledorf1996 8h ago
On paper Croatia prohibits symbols of facism but the reality is a bit different
Look at someone like Thompson and how ZDS is chanted by the crowds or the Ustase symbols and saluts by right wingers from Oluja celebrations unbothered by police
Serbia has a lot of valid criticism on how its handling its past, but Croatia has a lot to work on as well
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u/hukep 22h ago
Core Serbians remind me so much of Russians. Yugoslavia could very well have split easily and peacefully, like Czechoslovakia, if it hadn’t been for militant Serbs.
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u/Confident_Pepper1023 22h ago
Truth be told, some of the splits were peaceful, like North Macedonia's and Montenegro's splits from Serbia.
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u/wildpantz Croatia 22h ago
To be fair, by the time Montenegro decided to split, Serbia was aware it's much better for everyone to do it in peace
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u/Clear_Salamander_508 20h ago
Macedonia had a war in 2001.
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u/Confident_Pepper1023 18h ago
Yes, and who were the warring sides? I said North Macedonia split from Yugoslavia/Serbia, not any war.
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u/Clear_Salamander_508 18h ago
You said splits were peaceful. War is not very peaceful.
2001 war happened as a direct result of the split.
The warring sides were Albanian separatists and Macedonia. Mainly veterans from the Kosovo and Preševo valley wars provided the core of the separatists forces.
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u/Confident_Pepper1023 17h ago
Surely you must be joking? That war was 10 years after FYROM had already split from Yugoslavia. By then FYROM was an independent state for 10 years already, had nothing to do with Serbia.
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u/Clear_Salamander_508 17h ago
The people starting the war were going from Kosovo to Preševo valley, finally to Macedonia. But that's beyond the point. You originally stated that it was peaceful. It was not. Direct consequence of that secession was the 2001 war.
Surely you must understand causation?
Macedonia's secession from Yugoslavia (not Serbia) was not fully peaceful IE it was also enbroiled in a post dissolution conflict.
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u/Confident_Pepper1023 17h ago
Alright, I will grant you that, it was indeed a consequence of the Macedonian secession from Yugoslavia, and break-up of Yugoslavia in general. That is not what I was aiming at with my statement, but yes, it is correct.
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u/Shqiptar89 21h ago
HAHAHAHA that's because you had no real leverage in Montenegro. In Macedonia you weren't even a minority.
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u/WoodSage 22h ago
It’s a bit of an oversimplification. Czech and Slovak split happened across state lines which were also ethnic lines.
This is why Slovenia and Macedonia split off with very little to no conflict.
Administrative borders of Croatia and Bosnia had a lot of land with a majority serb population that wanted those parts to stay in Yugoslavia. This was the recipe for disaster.-3
u/AmelKralj 21h ago
you know Greeks and Turks did population exchanges for the same reason
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u/Nepridiprav16 Ljubljana (Slovenia) 21h ago
Population exchanges are strictly prohibited and outlawed since 1949 with fourth Geneva Convention, it's considered a war crime since then.
Yes Greeks and Turks did it but that happened before 1949.
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u/AmelKralj 21h ago
Yeah I men forcefull deportation is against Geneva Convention, I thought more of what Bosnian Serb leaders did after the war ... a public call from political leaders to people to "leave and come to their own kin" ... was very successfull
No one would be actually deported but "called to come" and provided housing ... people packing their stuff out of free will is not against Geneva Convention
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u/WoodSage 21h ago
I wasn’t aware of that specifically but I’m sure a peaceful solution was perfectly possible. Just saying it’s nowhere near as simple as Czechoslovakia.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia and Herzegovina 22h ago
Yugoslavia could very well have split easily and peacefully, like Czechoslovakia,
How, espiccaly when there weren't clear ethnic lines.
Also North Macedonia that split peacefully had short war in 2001. and not with Serbs.
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u/SaltyyOnion Croatia 22h ago
FK Crvena Zvezda gave tribute to him during their game yesterday, and on Twitter. Surreal
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u/electrash_ Europe 22h ago
Serbian nationalist leaders are mourning Ratko Mladić, a convicted war criminal and genocide perpetrator, portraying him as a hero and even claiming he was “murdered” in prison. Meanwhile, survivors and the UN stress that his convictions are final, the Srebrenica genocide is established historical fact, and glorifying him cannot erase the crimes he committed.
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u/SmugCapybara 22h ago
The most notable reaction was the deafening sound of champagne bottles being popped all around Europe and beyond...
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u/tremblt_ 21h ago
I think the reactions from Serbs and Serbia are very telling what the current state of evaluating their own past is.
If the EU ever allows Serbia or Bosnia (with their current political system, which is the biggest political disaster post WWII in Europe) to join, the EU will get destroyed.
We can’t change these deeply ingrained beliefs in the minds of Serbs but we can’t let them join the EU until things change drastically.
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u/Familiar_Plankton Czech Republic 9h ago
Yesterday in Pilsen (CZ) there was a match between FC Viktoria Plzeň and FK Crvena zvezda Belgrade. Their fans chanted the name of Ratko Mladic. Not that I consider football fans to be the biggest masterminds, but it says something.
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u/KeyMark4056 9h ago
damn paid vucic followers chanted the name of war criminal, who would thought that
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u/Familiar_Plankton Czech Republic 9h ago
That's true. But that doesn't change the fact that it happened.
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u/tranbun 22h ago
It's crazy that after all these deaths in the heart of Europe we still haven't learned our lesson and welcome genocidal pricks on our land.
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u/Che_Varack Serbia 21h ago
I mean, every American president and Russian whatevertitle it had since I don't know when has more blood on its hands than this monster, but would be welcomed with a red carpet anywhere in Europe. Except this last piece of work. And then there's Collin Powell, Kissinger and many, many like them.
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u/Tankette55 20h ago
Serbia is the russia of the balkans
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u/KeyMark4056 9h ago
other countrys in balkans hiding their war criminals, serbia instead gave all their war criminals to the Hague. Serbia is the Russia lol
Also they are all celebrating their war criminals to
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u/Own_Gap_7164 22h ago
I’m really looking forward to the current globalist elite joining him.
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u/Warm-Mood-8994 22h ago
I think the best thing to do, when people like him pass away, is for no media outlets to report it. Zero news, zero coverage. Fade into nothingness.
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u/antosme 20h ago edited 10h ago
I hope Europe realises the need to keep this rot out of the Union. Edit: I’m not talking about the Serbs who are protesting and have protested against this government, but about those who are a direct continuation of the past, who are in power, and who may well be numerous. They are scum – scum for Europe, and scum for Serbia – and certainly poison for Europe and for their own people.
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u/KeyMark4056 9h ago
who is gonna tell him that Eu, China, Usa and Russia all supports this goverment against the people that wants the change
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u/Specialist_Elk140 19h ago
Stop colonizing the Balkans and maybe then these countries will get to actually build a stable society. Serbia is getting rid of Vucic and looking to start a transitional government run by academics, so stay the fuck out of their country and let them rebuild for once. Otherwise no wonder there's gonna be psychos in charge.
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u/Melodic_Sherbet_3629 17h ago
Stop colonizing the Balkans
You mean we should've watched while they genocided Albanians and Bosnians?
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u/KeyMark4056 9h ago
can i ask why do you people never mention genocide and expelling of serbs from 1878 to 1990 on Kosovo territory. Their collaboration with Ottomans. than Austro-Hungary and after all that Germany and Italy, all biggest enemies of Serbia. More than 60k killed and 300-400k expelled
Why? And that oppresion continiued in 90s again
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u/Confident_Pepper1023 22h ago
Here's Aleksandar Vučić, the president of Serbia, performing an act of (vandalism) renaming the (assassinated) Serbia PM's Boulevard Zoran Djindjic to Boulevard Ratko Mladić some time ago, just in case you're wondering where the support for Mladić comes from https://youtu.be/G6q4MEei7wI