In what can only be described as a Balkan remake of Eat, Pray, Scheme, Serbian dictator Aleksandar Vučić recently treated Vienna to an unannounced visit—a one-man show of geopolitical absurdity dressed in grubby jeans, off-brand shades, and a baseball cap, as if cosplaying “anonymous tourist with unresolved trauma.” Naturally, he traveled solo. One can only assume his usual entourage had better things to do—like avoiding international arrest warrants or laundering campaign funds. He took public transport, too—because nothing says “man of the people” like strategically staged spontaneity and conveniently positioned cameras. You’d think someone trying this hard to blend in was either hiding from Interpol… or maybe scouting out a more flexible crowd than the one back home, where rainbow flags are treated like biological threats.

Meanwhile, the LGBTQ+ community—so often smeared in Vučić’s Serbia—continues to stand for peace, creativity, and human dignity. Qualities his regime seems to view as ideological viruses. Serbia under Vučić is a place where apologies for war crimes get you black-bagged and beaten in secret police basements. But in Brussels, this qualifies you for another round of IPA funding and a condescending nod from a bureaucrat too busy ironing their moral ambiguity.

The EU was warned. Years ago, Nikola Sandulović—a pro-Western reformist—raised the alarm: Vučić is a Russian Trojan Horse. The EU responded the only way it knows how: by ignoring it and doubling the grant money. When Sandulović dared apologize for Kosovo war crimes, he was dragged into BIA headquarters and tortured by masked agents. In Vučić’s Serbia, contrition is a criminal offense—especially if it threatens the myth of state-sanctioned innocence.

So what exactly was Vučić doing in Vienna? Soul-searching? Identity tourism? Or maybe just scanning the U-Bahn for someone who wouldn’t ask too many questions—about anything. It’s hard to say. What’s certain is that this wasn’t diplomacy. It was branding. Another sad installment in the Vučić Soft-Power Roadshow, where populism meets performative modesty and state terror hides behind denim jackets and bad lighting.

While Brussels dithers over meaningless resolutions and photo-op democracy, Vučić jets to Moscow like a man desperate to update his loyalty card at the Kremlin gift shop. Just 24 hours after the European Parliament told him to align with EU policy or else (spoiler: there’s no “else”), he showed up at Russia’s Red Square military parade like the class snitch trying to impress the school bully.

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Latvia, to its credit, blocked his plane. A rare flash of backbone from a continent mostly too busy drafting “deep concerns” to act on any of them. Vučić rerouted through Turkey and Azerbaijan—two regimes that also understand the value of holding elections nobody’s allowed to win.

In Moscow, he exchanged what might be the coldest handshake in recent history with Putin—a greeting so void of warmth it could’ve triggered a second Ice Age. No bromantic fanfare. Just two autocrats locking eyes like poker players who both know they’re bluffing.

And yet, Brussels keeps the show going. The EU’s eternal optimism, once inspiring, is now indistinguishable from willful delusion. It funds Serbian institutions while those same institutions jail dissidents. It rewards Vučić’s “stability” while students flee their country or run ultramarathons just to be heard. Literal ultramarathons—because apparently democracy now depends on cardio.

Welcome to the Vučić Tourism Complex. A Kafkaesque carnival of Instagram diplomacy, Balkan exceptionalism, and soft-authoritarian cosplay. Where cowboy hats, nationalist lullabies, and pretend neutrality mask a regime held together by media control and historical denial.

Vučić doesn’t travel for diplomacy—he travels to perform. To curate a version of Serbia palatable enough for foreign investors and clueless EU officials, but sterile enough to erase dissent. All delivered from the luxurious cabin of a Falcon 6X, because nothing screams “servant of the people” like a private jet burning taxpayer-funded jet fuel on the way to shake hands with war criminals.

Is this leadership? Is it farce?

Or just the latest episode of Keeping Up with the Kleptocrats, proudly co-produced by the European Commission and Moscow’s finest choreographers of decline?