Graffiti battle: Serbia fights Russian immigrant activism against Putin.

With a bucket of gray paint and a brush in hand, Russian activist Ilya Zernov walked through Belgrade and reached a huge mural on the wall of an apartment building that read, "Death to Ukraine." When Zernov, a 19-year-old, began to paint over the mural, he found himself at a dead end with three Serbs who ordered him to stop. "One of them pulled out a knife ... After that he punched me in my right ear," Zernov told the Observer newspaper. Although he left him with a punctured eardrum, Zernow said he was glad he was able to at least partially cover the mural. "As a Russian, I felt it was my responsibility to do something. Graffiti promotes violence.".

Zernov is one of an estimated 200,000 Russians who have left for Serbia since Putin's troops began invading Ukraine, making the Balkan country a major emigration destination for those fleeing the effects of the Kremlin's war. Unlike other parts of Europe, Russians do not need a visa to enter Serbia and are welcomed in Belgrade, bearing in mind the historical ties between the two Orthodox countries.

New immigrants have opened cafes and galleries, registered more than 2,000 new businesses and even boosted the real estate market. But in a country where the Putin regime enjoys significant support from the government led by President Aleksandar Vucic, activists like Zernov face harassment and expulsions.

Belgrade has long performed the delicate act of balancing its European ambitions on the one hand and its centuries-old ethnic and religious ties to Russia on the other. Vucic has refused to impose sanctions on Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, while Moscow continues to be Serbia's main ally in opposing the independence of its former province of Kosovo.

Feeling unsafe in Belgrade, Zernov left the city for Berlin.

Before his departure, he was an active member of the Russian Democratic Society (RDO), an anti-war organization founded last year to unite like-minded Russians.

"There is a graffiti battle in the streets of Belgrade," said RDO founder Peter Nikitin, listing other murals in the city welcoming Russian troops in Ukraine and the notorious Wagner mercenary group.

Nikitin said he founded the RDO shortly after the war in Ukraine began when he saw many of his countrymen looking for a way to express their opposition to the war. The group organized a number of marches in Belgrade.

When the number of RDO members began to grow after Russia's mobilization in September 2022, which led thousands of Russians to leave for Serbia to avoid the draft, the group attracted the attention of Serbian authorities, Nikitin said.

"First we faced an organized media campaign against us," Nikitin said, referring to negative coverage of his organization in pro-government tabloids.

Some Serbian far-right politicians also spoke out against the invasion by anti-war Russians, who they said were trying to undermine the country.

He said meetings of the RDO were regularly interrupted and Serbian banks refused the group's request to open an account allowing it to raise funds for anti-war charities.

In July, Serbian police banned Nikitin from entering the country on national security grounds.

In the end, Nikitin, who has a valid permanent residence permit, is married to a Serbian woman and has two children born in Serbia, managed to enter the country after spending the night at the airport. Shortly thereafter, Vladimir Volokhonski, an opposition counselor in St. Petersburg who, together with Nikitin, founded the RDO in Belgrade, had his Serbian residence permit revoked for the same reasons, i.e., that.

Nikitin and other Russian activists say the attacks on them were observed under the direct supervision of Serbian intelligence chief Aleksandar Vulin, widely considered close to the Russian intelligence services.

Serbian media also reported that the Belgrade Security and Information Agency (BIA) provocatively denied audio recordings of a meeting of Russian opposition figures in Belgrade in 2021.

It is believed that Vulin passed the recordings of the conversations to Moscow and gave them to Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia's security council.

"By targeting the leaders of the anti-war movement in Belgrade, Serbian authorities are trying to silence others," Nikitin said. "It's sad when the state acts against you. But still we try to unite and express our opinions. "

Concert halls and auditoriums in Belgrade have become lively meeting places for Russians. Since the war began, dozens of well-known Russian artists have left the country and begun touring in cities across Europe.

"I thought it was very important to unite people united against this war," said Russian citizen Yevgeny Irzhansky, an organizer of concerts by anti-war groups and cultural events in Belgrade. "We had hoped to build a strong community here," Irzhansky added.

But he has also run into problems with Serbian authorities.

In June, Irzhanski was questioned by local police about his views on Russia and the war.

Two months later, he was summoned to the Serbian migration service to inform him that his residence permit had been canceled and he had seven days to leave the country. "I have no doubt that they decided to expel me because of my views and my role as a concert organizer. "

"Most Russian musicians and speakers who are invited are blacklisted in Russia, and most of them live outside Russia because they face arrest there," said Irzhansky, who has since moved to neighboring Montenegro.

Despite the pressure, many Russians in Belgrade remain firm. About 5,000 people gathered at Dvoran's MTS Arena last Sunday to hear Bi-2, a popular Belarusian-Russian rock band that stopped performing in its homeland after its lead singer spoke out against the war.

When the concert came to an end, the band gathered outside.

"It was nice to come to such concerts and communicate with people who think the same way," said Anton, who left Moscow just after the war began. "It's important for the world to know that many Russians are against the war. "