Thousands of people said goodbye this Monday to the former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, who died on August 27 while serving a life sentence in The Hague for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, did not attend the ceremony, although several members of his government did. The funeral was held after the European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, postponed a visit to Serbia due to what she called the “glorification” of Mladić after his death, among other things because of the use of a government plane to transport his body from the Netherlands.
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Ratko Mladić was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The return of his remains to Belgrade reminds Europe of the darkest pages in our recent history.
— Marta Kos (@MartaKosEU) September 4, 2026
The glorification surrounding his death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is…
Mladic was arrested in Serbia in 2011 and convicted in 2017 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Among other crimes, he was found responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica, where about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in 1995, and for the terror campaign against the population of Sarajevo during the 43-month siege of the city, in which about 10,000 people died. The life sentence was confirmed on appeal in 2021.
The general’s body was transported to Serbia on a government plane, inside a coffin covered with the Serbian flag. The funeral was held at the Church of St. Luke, in the Vidikovac neighborhood of Belgrade, and was officiated by the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Porfirije.
Among those attending the ceremony were the Serbian Minister of Justice, Nenad Vujić; the Minister of Defense, Bratislav Gašić; the Minister of Culture, Nikola Selaković; and the president of Republika Srpska, the autonomous Serbian republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Siniša Karan. Also present were Željka Cvijanović, Serbian member of the tripartite Bosnian presidency; the Russian ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandr Botsan-Járchenko; and Danilo Vučić, son of the Serbian president. Mladic’s wife, son, and grandchildren remained beside the coffin receiving condolences.
From early morning, thousands of people gathered in front of the church with Serbian flags and photographs of Mladic. Free buses were arranged from various points in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina for those who wanted to pay tribute. Six men, mostly Serbian and Bosnian Serb war veterans, took turns standing guard beside the coffin.
Mladic was later buried alongside his daughter, who died in 1994. The ceremony included military honors, despite criticism from the European Union and associations of victims of the Bosnian war.
A 2025 survey commissioned by the Qatari network Al Jazeera in Republika Srpska found that 52% of respondents considered Ratko Mladić a hero, only 6% a war criminal, and 37% neither hero nor criminal. In the same survey, only 19% of those interviewed accepted that Srebrenica was a genocide, while 59% denied it.
On Sunday night, at the Belgrade derby between Red Star and Partizan, a minute of silence was observed for Mladic’s death and fans presented a tifo with a huge portrait of him. It was accompanied by the phrase “Pravac Potočari” (Direction Potocari), attributed to the former commander before heading to Srebrenica.
The European Union has expressed concern about the holding of the funeral. A spokesperson for the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, denounced that “any glorification of war criminals, denial of genocide, and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place either in the EU or in countries candidate for EU accession.”
The spokesperson added that “reconciliation and good neighborly relations in the Western Balkans remain fundamental to building a common future,” and assured that the armed conflicts in the Balkans region were “among the darkest moments in Europe’s recent history.”
