It was never about corruption or the rule of law or liberty or the EU or whatever. The ruling Progressives used the same rhetoric before they returned to power in 2012 – anti-corruption demagogy and pledges to “preserve Kosovo”.

Students did get support for their platform about Kosovo, namely from representatives of Kosovo Serb associations and from none other than Vojislav Šešelj, Vučić’s former party boss, who was convicted for crimes against humanity before the ICTY.

Look, we all knew what was going on ever since the protests started. When a bunch of folks waved nationalist paraphernalia and blasted the music of “Belgrade Syndicate”, we understood that these were, in fact, far-right protestors who disliked Vučić for being too Western for their taste.

Those foreigners who did know about the student protesters being just another wave of demagogic nationalism, like Timothy Snyder, Rachel Maddow, and Florian Bieber, for example, supported them to fit their own narratives and content creation.