You don't have to be well versed in politics to judge that Aleksandar Vulin, director of the BIA and leader of the Socialist Movement, is one of the most important associates of Aleksandar Vučić, the president of Serbia and until recently the president of the SNS.
Also, few of Vučić's associates speak of him with such reverence.
Vulin's political career continues, which for three decades has been filled with gaffes and statements that left him speechless. From the July phase, when he still had long hair, his statement will be remembered after the police used water cannons against protesters in the winter of 1997.
"Should they have poured hot water on them?!" was his comment at the time.
From that period, the statement after the shutdown of RTV B92, when he was asked if he really believed that the cause of the shutdown was that "the rain got into the coaxial cable," he said: "I'm not much of a believer, but if God decided to send rain just like that two days, then he sent it."
Vučić's grandmother and the Ustashas
Almost according to the rule of Vulin, in the first lines is the tightening of rhetoric towards neighboring countries, especially when it comes to Croatia.
There are hundreds of his statements, but one of the most impressive reads: "Vučić would not be alive today if the Ustasha had succeeded in slaughtering his grandmother."
Aunt from Canada
KRIK published a story about Minister Vulin's apartment in 2018. As he wrote, Aleksandar Vulin, then Minister of Defense, cannot prove the origin of more than 200.000 euros with which he bought the apartment.
He gave the anti-corruption agency an implausible explanation that he borrowed the money from his wife's aunt from Canada.
When asked by a KRIK journalist how he brought 205.000 euros into Serbia since there is no data on it in the Customs Administration, Vulin said that he brought the money in from several sources.
"Who tells you it was brought in in one piece?" Who tells you that 9.000 by 9.000 was not transferred by law?” Vulin said at the time.
Drugs and the Minister's Car
The case of the vehicle of the Ministry of Labor at the time when it was driven by Vulin, which, as the media wrote, was also used to sell drugs, will also be remembered.
The brother of the then state secretary in the Ministry of Labor, Aleksandar Jablanović, Marko, was arrested on suspicion of drug dealing. At the time of his arrest, he was in the official car of the Ministry of Aleksandar Vulin, "Blic" wrote.
The ministry denied that drugs were found in the car.
Tomato picking in Jovanjica
After a large amount of marijuana was found on the Jovanjica plantation, and its owner Predrag Koluvija was arrested, the public quickly remembered that one of the politicians who went there was Vulin.
Then, as Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Aleksandar Vulin was picking tomatoes.
"Serbia has hundreds of thousands of uncultivated hectares, this is all an indication of what we should do and where we should go," said Vulin.
After being reminded that he had been to the Coluvia estate, he replied:
"In 2015, I came to Jovanjica with the leadership of the National Employment Service because we received information that not only there, but in the entire agriculture area around Belgrade, there is a lack of seasonal workers." I brought the entire leadership of the National Employment Service there to see first-hand how the people they are supposed to employ live and work. That scum does not accuse the brotherhood of the Hilandar monastery, which accepted this same Kulovija into their brotherhood and gave him the blessing that his company and estate be named after the estate of the Hilandar monastery, that is Luka Jovanjica. Why don't you say that, you scumbag? It is not politically convenient because you know that the people would immediately see through what you are saying, because you know that the people would immediately say "they are lying," they accuse Hilandar! Will Hilandar be charged with drug trafficking because one man betrayed their trust? Will they do it? It won't! - said Vulin.
Welcome to Moscow.
At a time when Serbia is one of the few countries that has not imposed sanctions on Russia for its attack on Ukraine and is often under pressure from the international community because of this, in March of this year Vulin, as director of the Security and Information Agency, was in Moscow at an international security conference.
The United States of America, which has now imposed sanctions on Vulin, resented that visit.
US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill stated that "no one should give legitimacy to the Russian action by cooperating with the Kremlin as if everything is fine."
"Russia's aggression against its peaceful neighbor, Ukraine, is illegal and unreasonable. Vladimir Putin started this brutal war. He can and should end it immediately and stop the death and destruction his war is causing," Hill told Radio Free Europe.
