The session opened with keynote interventions from Prof. Dr. Gordan Akrap (University of Defence “Dr. Franjo Tuđman”, Croatia) and Prof. Dr. Iulian Chifu (Senior Research Fellow of INIS, former Presidential Adviser, and President of the Conflict Prevention and Early Warning Center, Romania), who joined via secure video link.

Prof. Akrap presented recent findings about Russia’s coordinated disinformation, influence, and destabilization activities in Croatia and the more expansive Adriatic security space, emphasizing how hybrid operations increasingly target critical democratic processes, civil cohesion, energy policy, and defense alignment. He highlighted the necessity of international scientific cooperation, intelligence sharing, and academic-security network building, stressing that without united analytical frameworks, no state—large or small—can withstand multi-layered cognitive attacks.

Prof. Chifu shared Romania’s extensive experience in confronting Russian hybrid aggression, explaining how the Kremlin deploys overlapping instruments—strategic corruption, energy leverage, intelligence infiltration, online disinformation, and targeted psychological operations—to shape decision-making environments and weaken pro-European institutions. He stressed that Romania’s resistance model is founded on close cooperation between academic institutions, security agencies, and allied frameworks within the EU and NATO. He called for Serbia’s academic community and European partners to coordinate more intensively in counter-hybrid research, training and early-warning methodologies.

Following their contributions, Prof. Dr. Darko Trifunović, Director of INIS, delivered an in-person strategic briefing focused on the Balkan theatre and current hybrid threats Serbia faces. He presented clear analytic evidence demonstrating that Serbia is the target—not the ally—of Russian hybrid warfare. Contrary to external narratives influenced by foreign propaganda, Serbia is neither a supporter, partner, nor instrument of Moscow; it is an active victim of a hostile intelligence-propaganda campaign designed to weaken its sovereignty and institutional capacity.

Prof. Trifunović highlighted that Russia is conducting undeclared cognitive conflict and non-kinetic warfare against Serbia, using digital propaganda networks, intelligence penetration, religious-political influence channels, and economic-energy leverage. One of the most aggressive tools in this campaign is the Portal Kombat / Pravda disinformation ecosystem, which has pushed more than 230,000 fabricated narratives targeting Serbia, aiming to paralyze state institutions, destabilize public trust, and coerce Belgrade into strategic ambiguity that benefits Moscow. These coordinated narratives mimic local discourse, infiltrate media space, saturate online channels, and ultimately undermine Serbia’s strategic decisional autonomy.

As presented in the INIS assessment, this hybrid offensive is supported by a network of Russian-linked organizational structures active on Serbian soil, including:

• The so-called Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center in Niš,

• The Russian Balkan Center operating in Belgrade, and
• The Russian Historical Society’s newly established local presence.

These entities function not merely as cultural or humanitarian institutions but as platforms for cognitive influence, intelligence signaling, and ideological projection. They form nodes of a broader Russian hybrid infrastructure that shapes narratives, society, and perception spaces. Their activities align with Russia’s wider operational doctrine in Serbia and the Balkans, seeking to convert cultural and religious affinity into political leverage and cognitive dependency.

Prof. Trifunović emphasized that Serbia’s commitment is to democratic partnership, regional stability, and strategic integration with the European and international security architecture. He clarified that defending national sovereignty today means defending the cognitive space against misinformation, strengthening institutional resilience, developing elite education in security studies, and building strategic alliances with academic and defense partners.

The event concluded with an open exchange between INIS leadership, attending military attachés, and diplomatic representatives, who expressed support for Serbia’s research-driven approach to countering hybrid threats and welcomed INIS’s leadership role in academic-security cooperation.

As reiterated during the session:

Serbia is not Russia’s partner — Serbia is Russia’s target. Serbia’s defense requires facts, unity, knowledge, and allies.

With this event, INIS again positioned itself as a leading regional hub for strategic research, defense education, international collaboration, and resilience building against hybrid and cognitive warfare. Future INIS initiatives will continue to deepen cooperation with partner institutions and allied security communities in Europe and beyond.

The “Coffee with Military Attachés” event, organized by the Institute for National and International Security (INIS) in Belgrade, is a professional diplomatic-security forum designed to strengthen dialogue and cooperation between Serbia’s academic security community and the defense representatives of foreign diplomatic missions accredited in the Republic of Serbia.

Although held in a collegial and informal setting, the event has a distinctly strategic, analytical, and policy-focused character. It serves as a platform where military attachés, international security experts, and INIS researchers exchange assessments on global and regional security developments, hybrid and cognitive threats, defense cooperation, intelligence trends, and emerging risks affecting European and Balkan stability.

The forum enables:

• Open and structured discussion on contemporary security challenges
• Presentation of expert geopolitical and security analyses
• Strengthening international academic and defense partnerships
• Sharing of national and regional threat perspectives
• Building mutual trust and diplomatic-security understanding

This concept follows international best practice models used by leading research centers and defense institutions. It offers a neutral academic space for professional exchange away from formal diplomatic protocol pressures.

By hosting this dialogue, INIS affirms its role as a bridge between Serbia and the international defense and academic community, contributing to transparency, security-sector education, cooperative threat assessment, and modern protective strategies against hybrid, informational, and geopolitical threats.

In essence, “Coffee with Military Attachés” is a strategic academic-diplomatic platform where knowledge meets diplomacy and Serbia’s commitment to international cooperation, institutional resilience, and peace-focused security culture is clearly demonstrated.