DOUBLE GAME BY UNITED GROUP OWNER: Using BFMI to Attack Competitors Over Fabricated "Pro-Russian Propaganda" While Secretly Doing Business with Russian Contacts
The Balkan Free Media Initiative (BFMI), an organisation claiming independence but in reality closely tied to United Group, is set to present its new report tomorrow on the media landscape in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, and Slovenia. The event, featuring familiar actors from past campaigns targeting United Group competitors, is expected to produce yet another report filled with bias rather than impartial assessments of the facts.
BFMI’s previous reports have been previously used as tools by United Group to protect its business interests, masked as concerns for democracy, media freedom, and European values.
A clear example of how Šolak's network operates—comprising media outlets, NGOs, individuals, lobbyists, consultants, and more—can be seen in a recent case where United Group launched a broad offensive against its competitors, exploiting the current anti-Russian sentiment. Šolak saw this anti-Russian atmosphere as an opportunity to financially harm his media competitors, including Kurir.
By spreading disinformation and fabricating reports on media content, Šolak activated his entire machinery to present his own narrative as objective truth, influencing decisions made by others. Through his mechanism to eliminate competition, Šolak managed to sway much larger players to make business decisions that ultimately benefited him.
The attack began with the appearance of a letter, seen – making everything even more interesting – only by select media outlets, which formed the basis of their narrative. To amplify its significance, the letter was reportedly signed by several MEPs. These MEPs addressed global corporations in this way, urging them to stop advertising in specific media outlets in Serbia and Bulgaria that they claimed supported "pro-Russian war propaganda." Lastly, the MEPs brought together for this task based their demands on an analysis conducted by three organisations regarding the state of media in Serbia and Bulgaria.
It is clear that the narrative was packaged to bait big brands advertisers into changing their advertising policies to Šolak's financial advantage. It appears that Šolak reasoned that redirecting advertising revenue would work in his favour, having already done his best to build a completely false image of himself as a pro-European and anti-Russian figure. However, the reality is far from what Šolak portrays.
On the geopolitical front, Dragan Šolak has made serious missteps, despite his vocal and persistent claim to be a reliable partner for the West. This became perfectly clear when his covert ties to Russian contacts were uncovered. Slovenian media revealed last year that Šolak was developing business ventures behind the scenes with Wolfram Kuoni, an influential figure in Russian circles. Thus, while presenting himself through his media as a crusader against "Russian propaganda," Šolak seizes every opportunity to establish profitable business connections with Russians.
This revelation regarding Šolak’s business casts a new light on his actions, including his attempts to use anti-Russian rhetoric to harm competitors in Serbia. The truth is, he operates on dual fronts—projecting himself as a Western ally while forming lucrative ties with Russians, all depending on what serves his current interests.
Like previous attempts to eliminate competition, this case illustrates how Šolak’s United Group has created a sort of system of communicating vessels. Through this network, they shape any convenient and profitable story for their interest, presenting it as unquestionable and objective information. This time, the campaign’s foundation lies with the NGO Crta, a co-author of the media content analysis that creates a distorted picture of which Serbian media outlets allegedly spread pro-Russian propaganda in the domestic market. This narrative is then used to persuade major international advertisers to blacklist these outlets. Crta, however, is just another cog in Šolak's machinery for eliminating competition. Like many NGOs, it exists solely to create the illusion of credibility for this mechanism and promote it, especially beyond Serbia’s borders.
This is why the Crta report, produced in collaboration with BFMI – the very same organization that will present its conclusions about the current media landscape in the region tomorrow – has provided Šolak with a tool to point fingers at any competitor, accuse them of being Moscow propagandists, and label them enemies of Europe—all from the heart of Belgrade. Kurir has also found itself caught up in these machinations.
BFMI plays a central role in constructing this narrative too, working alongside Crta to frame certain Serbian media outlets as influenced by Russian interests. BFMI, the organisation signing off on this report intended to guide future advertising policies of global corporations in Serbia, is led by individuals on Šolak’s payroll. One such figure is Peter Horrocks, a media veteran who simultaneously serves on the BFMI Management Committee and as an advisor to the Editorial Board of N1 Television, owned by United Group. Simply put, the person managing an organisation advising global corporations not to advertise in certain targeted Serbian media outlets is also on Šolak’s payroll. Horrocks will also moderate tomorrow's panel discussion dissecting Serbia’s media landscape based on BFMI’s instructions.
Another key figure is Andrey Kovačev, who connects tomorrow’s event to the MEP letter urging global companies to withdraw advertisements in certain Serbian media outlets. While hosting BFMI’s new report presentation in the European Parliament tomorrow, Kovačev was also the formal leader of the letter initiative. He rallied 15 more MEPs from across the political spectrum to support the campaign, himself being an MP from the Bulgarian opposition party GERB. Notably, Kovačev hails from Bulgaria, a country where Šolak’s business interests are extensive.
One of Šolak’s main media allies in Bulgaria is Antoinette Nikolova, who has – just like Peter Horrocks – worked for Šolak for a decade and serves as Director at BFMI, whose supposedly impartial analysis sparked the MEP letter campaign. Nikolova is employed as an EU correspondent for Bulgaria’s Nova TV since July 2014—a station within Šolak’s United Group. This fact is notably absent from her official biography on BFMI’s website.
Coming Up in the Next Instalment: How Dragan Šolak’s Lobbying Network Operates in Targeting United Group Competitors