Street Reporters Have Earned Their Unofficial Status as the Lords of European Squares for a Reason. The conclusion that they are part of the tourist offerings in major cities seems reasonable, given that the photo souvenirs offered by the company Street.Press have become a recognizable brand throughout Europe.
The company operates from Lviv to Geneva, Budapest, Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, Belgrade, and their extensive network of “branches” even extends to smaller towns and villages. A harmless joke that has won the sympathy of people worldwide? Not at all.
Leading this crew is not, as one might assume, a street-level entertainer, but a highly-profiled member of security structures. The project itself is not of recent origin and, judging by the flow of money that follows it, is not time-bound – at least until the West decides enough blood has been shed in Ukraine.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE UKRAINIAN ARMY
The story goes like this… A few young people in city squares across Europe, wearing uniformed T-shirts with the company logo, offer photo montages of old city newspapers where the central figure is a passerby – spontaneously caught in the photo frame (officially speaking – without permission to be photographed).
With modest knowledge of the host country’s language, and a linguistic base that suggests a Russophone Ukraine, the street artists will welcome you to the “memory-making workshop.” Everything seems impeccably neat, but if you scan the code printed at the bottom of your personal retro newspaper, you’ll realize a near-perfect dramatic plot is unfolding. On the company’s Instagram page, there is a QR code for the National Bank of Ukraine with instructions on how to transfer money for the needs of the Ukrainian army.
The offer includes a series of photos featuring “The best people” of Lviv, the burning of Russian rubles, or a photomontage of the Crimean bridge in flames. Were you told that the amount of the donation is your choice? There’s only free cheese in a mousetrap.
UNDERGROUND AGENT NETWORK
The coordination works as follows: The mastermind of the operation is located in Lviv, Western Ukraine. The employer of the Street.Press network advertises on Russian and Ukrainian search engines, offering interested young people the chance to join a team that promises decent shifts and regular earnings. The contact person is a certain Valentin. Phone number: +380984953924. The ad reveals little, except that the job involves creating photo souvenirs and that wages are paid daily. A bit more information is available on a page related to engagement in Serbia. From the attached ad, we learn that shifts are four hours long, the pay ranges from 4000 to 6000 dinars per day, and for each new team member, the employee receives a bonus of 5000 dinars. The preferred category is students. Company address: Street Press. A.D, Knez Mihailova 21. Contact person: Prepelitsa Maksim.
However, at the mentioned address in Belgrade, there is no company office, nor is the company registered with the Business Registers Agency. Among Belgrade’s street vendors, there are fairly reliable reports that it is a closed system within which the rule of absolute discretion applies. Although they share the same “business space” with street stall owners, the reporters do not engage in deeper communication with their Serbian neighbors. The employer, code name Maksim, uses profiles on Telegram, WhatsApp, and Viber networks but ignores inquiries in Serbian regarding the details of the job offer.
The Underground network of Ukrainian agents has Its rules. The internal vetting of interested individuals is carried out by a trusted person, known by the code name “Vanja,” who performs the selection and further coordinates with other members stationed in various cities across Serbia.
ON THE JOB OF MOCKING SERBS
It is quite unusual that the company pays travel expenses from Ukraine to Belgrade and half the rental cost for verified and interested staff. This is a significant sum for employees whose job description involves just four hours of engaging passersby.
Collecting money for the front is clearly not the final deciphering of this thriller saga. The unpleasant truth is that criminal activity extends deeper into Serbian reality and is connected with the creation of an anti-Putin cell waiting for a wake-up call. In Niš, there are two points where newly arrived Ukrainians and Russians take turns mocking Serbs. The municipal police ignore the fact that they work without permits, accepting the excuse that these are young people volunteering.
Residents of Niš are unaware that their money is going to Ukraine, or even more sinisterly, that the Ukrainian secret elite is relocating to Serbia. A similar situation exists in Novi Sad and Kragujevac.
It is indicative that the street artists who have spread across Europe, despite being unregistered, work unhindered. Has no one paid attention to this fact? Or have they…?
THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
It should be known that this mainly involves Ukrainian and Russian citizens who receive instructions on further actions and recommendations for tighter integration into the anti-Putin network program through closed groups. This orientation necessarily implies anti-Serbian activities – group members are politically profiled and engaged in topics such as the resolution of the Kosovo issue and support for opposition currents at the city level. Formulating the vision of Serbia and the Balkans is a priority issue around which activists in civilian clothes compete.
There are indications that the crew from the squares closely collaborates with non-governmental organizations in Belgrade and Novi Sad, participating in activism school programs aimed at stimulating anti-Russian and anti-government initiatives. The fact that the photographs are not deleted after the creation of retro newspapers but archived and sent to highly-profiled personnel whose job is intelligence work makes the situation even murkier.
All indications suggest that the observations presented are just the tip of the iceberg. The most innocent assumptions suggest that the photographs of millions of European citizens are intended to serve as indicators of sentiment towards “hated” Moscow and “distressed” Kyiv, justifying the accession of European governments to the anti-Russian coalition of Western powers. The more serious suspicions point to more sinister scenarios.
How the final act will play out remains an open question. A scandal of enormous proportions is looming.
