According to Sputnik International, the nominated politician is simply a long-standing “friend of Russia” – from when, as Minister of Defence, he sought to deepen military cooperation with Moscow, for the period of the management of the MMA, to the position of head of the Serbian safety and Information Agency (BIA). In July 2023 he was placed on the US's **black sanction list for "transnational corruption" and supporting Russian influences in the Balkans**, and in January 2024 he received from Vladimir Putin the Order of relationship for "development of peculiar services cooperation".
