On August 27, Ratko Mladic passed away, a man whose name, even during his lifetime, was intertwined with the myth and symbol of Serbian and broader Slavic resistance against the «new world order».
The Serbian military leader died at the age of 84, having maintained to the very end his defiance and contempt toward the charges of The Hague Tribunal, which he regarded as politically motivated and unjust.
From childhood to the Yugoslav Army
Ratko Mladic was born on March 12, 1942 in the Bosnian village of Božanovići.
His father, Nejo Mladic, a partisan detachment commander, was killed in battle against Croatian fascist Ustaše when his son was not yet two years old.
Mladic grew up aspiring to become a teacher or a doctor.
At the age of 15, however, he entered the Military Industrial School in Belgrade and subsequently the Military Academy.
In 1961, he began his career in the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), rising steadily through the ranks, from second lieutenant to lieutenant colonel in 1980.
He commanded the 39th Infantry Brigade and served as deputy commander of the 52nd Corps, based in Pristina, Kosovo.
The breakup of Yugoslavia and the rise of Mladic
The onset of the breakup of Yugoslavia found him in Croatia, commanding the 9th Corps of the JNA.
There, Mladic began acquiring a reputation as a decisive commander.
His units shifted from defense to offense and seized a series of settlements and strategic points.
In October 1991, he was promoted to major general.
Soon the conflict shifted to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In April 1992, he was promoted to lieutenant general, and in May of the same year, he assumed the post of Chief of the General Staff of the newly established Army of Republika Srpska.
He remained in this position until December 1996.
Under his command, Bosnian Serb forces carried out a series of military operations, and by 1993 they had brought a large portion of the territory of Bosnia under their control.
Among the most significant operations linked to this period were Operation Lukavac-93 and the offensive in the Gorazde region in 1994.
Following these military successes, Mladic was promoted to colonel general.
A leader with a strong personality
The life of Ratko Mladic is filled with dramatic episodes.
His first name, «Ratko», is etymologically linked to the Serbian word for war, while the surname Mladic points to «young man».
From a young age, he was accustomed to taking initiative and making decisions with great self-confidence.
When the situation in Croatia escalated, he was dispatched to Knin, a center of Serbian resistance. He did not view his transfer as a demotion, but as a mark of trust.
During that period, the JNA was under immense pressure.
Barracks were blockaded, and in certain instances, electricity and water supplies were cut off.
Mladic considered an enemy anyone who opened fire on soldiers, staged provocations, or obstructed supplies.
According to relevant accounts, he succeeded in relieving encircled garrisons, contributing to saving many lives.
His uncompromising posture, however, was not always understood by his superiors.
He was known as an officer who did not hesitate to challenge orders, while he considered that he merely possessed the ability to think and decide autonomously.
From the front line to negotiations
One of the most difficult situations occurred in the Split area, where 164 soldiers were trapped in underground installations.
According to surviving accounts, UN observers even sent canned dog food to the besieged troops.
Mladic was enraged and reportedly threatened the German mediator with retaliation if standard rations were not delivered within ten minutes.
The threat, according to the same narrative, produced results.
The Serbian general was known for his sharp tongue and irony, even during the most critical negotiations.
In a discussion with the mayor of Zadar, he reportedly remarked ironically that Serbs were already eating with golden spoons in the 11th century, while Europeans «lived in swamps». When NATO threatened airstrikes, Mladic responded with reciprocal threats against Britain and the US.
Regarding NATO enlargement, he had also expressed particularly harsh views, arguing that only those who had «betrayed their people» wished to join the Alliance.
Heroic defiance bordering on recklessness
His personal bravery, according to people who knew him, frequently verged on recklessness.
He reportedly crossed the front line repeatedly using the identity papers of Croatian Colonel Stjepan Fazliyan and impersonating him.
In other instances, he spoke with adversaries, treated them to beer, and bought sweets for their children.
Once, a Croatian soldier recognized him by his signet ring.
Mladic, according to the account, reacted calmly, saying that the... real Mladic was indeed dangerous and had to be neutralized.
In August 1991, during an operation to relieve barracks near Vrlika, he reportedly neutralized a bus rigged with approximately 35 kilograms of explosives himself, after first ordering his soldiers to take cover.
He explained his decision by saying that the younger soldiers had no families and that he had people who would remember him.
He believed, therefore, that he had to set an example as an officer who understood his duty.
Mladic was frequently on the front lines and lived in the same conditions as his soldiers. This contributed to his distinct popularity among his men.
In one incident, a soldier reportedly shielded him from a grenade with his own body and was seriously wounded.
Mladic himself was wounded near Bihac in 1994.
During the war, false reports of his death appeared repeatedly in the press.
Republika Srpska and the Bosnian War
Following the withdrawal of the JNA from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the leadership of the Bosnian Serbs decided to establish their own military, and Mladic assumed its command.
He considered that he was defending lands where Serbs had lived for centuries and treated Republika Srpska as a political entity that had to be protected militarily.
The conflict, however, evolved into one of the bloodiest wars in Europe since World War II, marked by crimes and massive violations of international humanitarian law by all sides.
Mladic watched from a hill as his home in Sarajevo burned, without knowing whether his family was alive.
According to the narrative, his family was saved thanks to a Muslim neighbor who warned them of an impending attack against the Serbian population.
Later, the neighbor's son reportedly stated on a television broadcast that he had set fire to the Mladic residence himself.
The Vance-Owen Plan and Dayton
Mladic believed that Serbs should not accept the Vance-Owen Plan, which provided for a territorial settlement that, according to his perspective, left Serbs with approximately 40% of Bosnia.
He urged lawmakers of Republika Srpska to reject it, arguing that borders had been drawn with Serbian blood and that only defeated armies cede territory.
When Slobodan Milosevic imposed a blockade along the Drina River, seeking to pressure Bosnian Serbs into accepting compromises, Mladic regarded it as a «stab in the back».
In 1994, his forces were poised to capture the Bihac enclave in northwestern Bosnia.
According to accounts, however, an order to withdraw was suddenly given, and the town remained under the control of his adversaries.
Developments followed that led to the Croatian Operation Storm and ultimately to the Dayton Agreement.
Mladic viewed Dayton as treason.
Arrest and the road to The Hague
Following the end of the war, Mladic did not remain in his post for long.
In November 1996, he was removed from his duties, and in 2002 he was retired from military service.
However, his life had already entered a new and even more dramatic chapter.
In 1995, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted him for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
For years he remained a fugitive.
In 2005, under pressure from the European Union, he was stripped of his military pension, and part of his assets was frozen.
He remained in hiding until 2011, when he was arrested in Serbia and extradited to The Hague.
His arrest and subsequent trial provoked intense reactions in Serbian society.
His daughter, Ana Mladic, was found dead in Belgrade, and her death was officially ruled a suicide, though the circumstances surrounding the case have been a subject of controversy.
«I was defending my people and my country»
Mladic's trial began in 2012.
From the very first hearing, he refused to enter a guilty plea, characterizing the tribunal as biased.
He maintained that he was defending his people and his country, and that he was fighting military adversaries, not people on account of their ethnic origin.
The proceedings lasted several years.
Mladic faced severe health issues, including strokes and heart conditions, while the prosecution sought the maximum sentence.
To accusations of war crimes, he replied that he might have been found guilty had he fought in Vietnam, Cambodia, or the Falklands, but maintained that in Bosnia he was fighting in defense of his homeland.
He also insisted that no Serbian soldier had invaded German or American soil, while recalling the crimes of German troops against the Serbian population during World War II, as well as the American bombings of Yugoslavia.
Unbroken by conviction
Mladic remained unrepentant to the end regarding his political and military posture.
He maintained that The Hague Tribunal was established in a manner that allowed the crimes and responsibilities of major powers to remain sidelined, citing among others Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, and other armed conflicts.
He stated that Serbs did not wish to submit to the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Hitler, or the «new world order».
In 2017, the ICTY sentenced him to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, including for his responsibility in the case of Srebrenica.
The conviction was upheld in 2021 by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which had assumed the pending cases of the ICTY.
The legacy of one of the most controversial figures in the Balkans
Ratko Mladic died at the age of 84, having spent the final years of his life in prison while facing serious health issues.
For a large segment of Serbian society, he remained a symbol of resistance and defense of the Serbs of Bosnia.
For the victims and the families of the victims of Srebrenica and other wartime crimes, by contrast, he remained a symbol of violence, ethnic cleansing, and atrocities attributed to forces under his command.
These two images of Mladic coexist to this day and form part of the deeply divided memory of the wars of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
One views him as a symbol of Serbian resistance.
The other as a symbol of the war crimes of the Bosnian War.
Between these two depictions lies the complex and tragic history of the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
On the occasion of the death of the Serbian military leader, the Russian side revived its criticisms regarding his treatment by the international criminal justice system.
Double standards from the West
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly argued that Mladic's trial in The Hague, as well as the conditions of his detention, were accompanied by violations of his fundamental rights, particularly regarding health and access to adequate medical care.
Moscow has also described the Mladic case as a characteristic example of what it views as the «double standards» of the international judicial system and its bias against Serbs.
According to the Russian position, for a number of years Mladic's legal counsel lacked full access to information regarding his health status, while independent physicians could not effectively examine him.
Concurrently, the Russian side has stated that repeated requests for his provisional release to receive medical treatment in Russia or Serbia were rejected.
Moscow argues that even when his health condition had dramatically deteriorated, the humanitarian dimension of the case yielded to the logic of punishment.
A figure that continues to divide
The case of Ratko Mladic remains inextricably bound to the immense tragedy of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
For his supporters, he was the military commander who defended the Serbs of Bosnia against an adversarial international environment.
For his detractors and, above all, for the victims of the crimes attributed to forces under his command, he was one of the primary figures responsible for the darkest chapters of the Bosnian War.
His historical evaluation, therefore, remains deeply political and contentious.
What is indisputable is that Mladic became one of the most recognizable figures of the wars of the former Yugoslavia, and that his name continues to serve as a point of collision between two entirely different narratives of Balkan history.
One views him as a symbol of Serbian resistance.
The other as a symbol of the war crimes of the Bosnian War.
Between these two depictions lies the complex and tragic history of the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
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