Under Serbian law, participating as a volunteer or mercenary in a foreign war is a criminal offence, punishable by between six months and five years in prison, even more for those who participate as part of an organised group or recruit others to do so.<\/p>\n
Dinic was never prosecuted for his activities in Ukraine, which, according to social media posts, date to 2014. It is not known how long he spent in the country.<\/p>\n
He has a long record of run-ins with the Serbian justice system, on charges including theft, traffic offences and drug-related crimes.<\/p>\n
On several occasions, Dinic underwent psychiatric evaluation.<\/p>\n
One of the lawyers who represented him said he believed Dinic\u2019s experience in Ukraine had a defining impact on his personality.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe described the war in Ukraine to me as a slaughterhouse and a deception,\u201d said the lawyer, who asked not to be named.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he ever recovered from that period of his life, and I believe he saw and experienced horrific things there. He became an even lonelier person, living an increasingly chaotic life. He frequently changed apartments and jobs. He worked at a betting shop, as a food delivery driver, and at gas stations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHis moods changed constantly, and he used marijuana almost every day, sometimes other drugs as well, and often drank heavily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another veteran of the war, who does not know Dinic personally, said it was \u201cvery likely\u201d he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.<\/p>\n
\u201cWar is a horrific thing,\u201d said the veteran, who spoke on condition of anonymity. \u201cShrapnel and body parts are flying around you, and every minute you wonder whether you will be the next to die. No one comes back from that unchanged.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to data received from the offices of the Higher Public Prosecutor in Serbia, covering the period 2014 to April 2026, 60 cases were initiated under the criminal offence of participation in a war or armed conflict in a foreign country under Article 386a of the Criminal Code and organising participation under Article 386b.<\/p>\n
At least 23 of those cases have been initiated since 2022, the year Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Before that, Russia had fomented armed rebellion in eastern Ukraine starting in 2014, the same year Moscow annexed Crimea.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors reported at least three convictions since 2022 based on plea agreements.<\/p>\n
Killing for money<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under Serbian law, participating as a volunteer or mercenary in a foreign war is a criminal offence, punishable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3367,8770,8771,8772,8773,26],"class_list":["post-24234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-organised-crime","tag-organised-crime-in-the-balkans","tag-paper-trail","tag-russia-and-the-balkans","tag-serbias-special-court-for-organised-crime","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}