Short answer: yes. Longer answer: there is always an unbelievable amount of EU and NATO fuckery going on in Serbia, has been going on for years if not decades at this point. The government is already semi-comprador and basically capitulates to the West on every issue that matters.

But that's still not enough for the imperialists. They have to stamp out even the token lip service that the Serbian government offers to Serbia's historic affinity with Russia, which they only do to placate their generally russophile population. Much the same as how Turkey pays lip service to Palestine because their population is largely anti-Zionist but behind the scenes they are aiding and abetting the genocide.

That is how insecure the Anglo-European elites are and how desperate they are for total control in Europe. It's the modern incarnation of the Nazi concept of "Gleichschaltung". Same reason they are constantly trying to take down Orban in Hungary (who is a piece of shit for a multitude of different reasons...anti-communist, islamophobe, Zionist...all usually a plus with the EU elite, but again, nothing but total compliance and absolute alignment with everything Brussels says will satisfy the Euro-Atlanticists) and why they tried to assassinate Fico in Slovakia.

Neither of which are really a threat to the EU or NATO in any way, but they still pursue too much of an independent policy so they have to be taken out. Serbia is a microcosm of that same phenomenon. It has a weak government and a very unstable socio-economic situation, so they do 99% of everything the EU and NATO demand, but the EU and NATO won't tolerate anything less than 100%.

At this point there is a fanatical obsession in the European elite with the idea of uniting all of Europe under the Brussels diktat (just like the Nazis dreamed of uniting all of Europe under their banner...it's no coincidence that many of the Eurocrat elites have Nazi ancestry), establishing complete ideological and systemic uniformity across Europe, and ideally propagandizing every single European into hating Russia. They are investing a huge amount of effort into squashing any and all dissent no matter how small. The more cracks that appear in NATO and the EU the more desperate they are to accelerate EU and NATO expansion, believing that if they manage to pull every single country in Europe into these organizations that this will solve or postpone their problems.

And yes there is also a material motivation to this because this is how they justify pumping more billions of Euros into the military, which is a huge opportunity for most of these elites to get very wealthy, but a significant number of these people are really ideological true believers. Their fanaticism should not be underestimated.

Short personal anecdote from me. I was recently in Serbia (I do not speak Serbian, which could mean that I got heavily biased answers) and I got the chance to ask a few people this question directly.

Some takeaway points:

1. The idea that Serbia can/will be part of the EU and everyone will live happily ever after has taken hold of most people I spoke with;

2. If the beginning of the protests were astroturfed, they have been extremely successful at bringing people into this movement; because at the heart of it, people ARE pissed off about corruption;

3. Apparently talking politics in Serbia was a somewhat taboo topic...now it is completely reversed, it is taboo to NOT state your position on these protests.

One family (middle aged mother, father and kids) walked past my campsite where I was having a chat with a Serbian couple, the father talked to them for less than one minute, in that time he managed to ask them if they support the government or not.

4. I forgot to look this up because I'm a lazy piece of shit, but two people said to me that the renovated train station that collapsed and sparked this protest was done by a Chinese company. This is leading people to believe that every piece of Chinese-built infrastructure in the country (which is quite a lot) is a scam/corrupt and it will fall over within a week of opening.

As I said, all personal anecdotes from the mouths of some Serbs I met last month, take it with a grain of salt.

I was born there and I am there every year or so. Most of the information I read here are half-truths or outright false.

In short, a glass roof on a newly built train station collapsed and massacred and killed a bunch of people, many of them young. Yes, the Chinese built it, but according to Serbian specs. Since Serbia is a massively corrupt mafia state, no one was held responsible, so some students held a minor, short and very peaceful protests. Vucic's regime responded by sending masked goons to beat the crap out of them and some of them ended up in hospital. No one was held responsible for that either.

Now, it's hard to overstate just how corrupt Serbia under Vucic is and corruption's role in disintegrating civili society. If you want to have a glimpse of how genuinely horrific the situation in Serbia is, take a look at this video, but a huge CW for the faint of heart, because people are getting turned into minced meat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZZHctPA22c

So, basically those Vucic's goons just beating the crap out of peaceful protestors was just the last straw and other students joined with them. Soon many professors joined in as well, since Vucic was beating up their students and they felt morally obliged to rise up as well.

So as the protests picked up, students went to great lengths to distance themselves from any political party or politician. IMO a wrong move. Basically all they want is not to live in a jungle, but in a place where laws are actually observed and applied, but their demands seems vague and (I think) they don't have a clear goal in mind. They even stated they aren't aiming for "regime change" (also a mistake IMO).

Meanwhile, Vucic has been regularly breaking a bunch of laws of his own country, and gloating about it too. He seems to be a sociopath and if you think Trump is bad, Vucic is far worse. The sh1t he pulled can't fit in a book, much less forum post. That includes openly cheating on elections in (at least) Belgrade.

"The economy" is doing ok, but public services are all crumbling and you basically need to pay for everything out of your pocket. It's a true "crony capitalism".

He managed to create some kind of a client state, where he gives privileged government jobs and contracts to a bunch of people, which are then expected to bring themselves and their families to the voting booth. The rest are discouraged to vOtE and lost faith in democratic process a long time ago, so they keep winning. The same template I see in neighboring Croatia.

Anyway I have to stop there, but feel free to send more questions my way.