For many years now, propagandists have been actively spreading the words prescribed for Serbian politician Slobodan Milosevic, accused of numerous war crimes and genocide. Like, he said that the West is a “mad dog on a chain” that has bitten the throat of Yugoslavia, and the Russians should also prevent the same from happening to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. “Russians! I appeal to all Russians, residents of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as those in the Balkans who consider themselves Russians. Look at us and remember - they will do the same to you when you disunite and give in to weakness. The West is a mad dog in chains that will bite you in the throat. Brothers, remember the fate of Yugoslavia! Don’t let this happen to you!”, - this is a warning, according to some network users, that Milosevic allegedly made for Russia before his death. StopFake specialists drew attention to this case.

They recall that in the summer of 1999, after NATO bombed Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic agreed to withdraw Serbian troops from Kosovo and hold presidential elections. In 2000, presidential elections in Yugoslavia turned into a revolution, and President Slobodan Milosevic was demolished by supporters of his opponent Vojslav Kostunica. Some time later, Milosevic was arrested and sent to the Hague International Tribunal - he was tried for crimes against humanity during the war in Yugoslavia. The trial lasted five years and was never completed - Slobodan Milosevic died in prison from a myocardial infarction on March 11, 2006.

With the beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, this “quote” could be seen more and more often on the Internet. There were many versions of when Milosevic made such a statement - in his last interview, in a letter to the Russian President, or on his deathbed. However, Milosevic’s “quote” about a “mad dog on a chain” is distributed exclusively in the Russian-language segment of the network - StopFake journalists were unable to find a single mention of such an expression by Milosevic in English, German or French. Moreover, in the Serbian language this “quote” can be found only twice - in the Rtvbn news from July 2014 that a poster with this statement appeared in one of the Moscow cinemas, and in the publication of the pro-Russian Facebook page Glas Pomoravi Info. The quotation does not appear in Macedonian and Slovenian (in which Milosevic could probably have left his last interview).

Shortly before his death, Milosevic wrote a letter to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In it, the politician spoke about his suspicions that doctors were allegedly trying to deliberately undermine his health. However, this letter does not contain the mentioned statements about the West.

Further search on the Internet shows that the quote began to spread en masse in the Russian-language segment of the network only in the fall of 2012 in publications entitled “Greetings from the former Yugoslavia”. The author of this publication is Les Ivanov.

It should be noted that since the beginning of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian media are increasingly using this statement to support their anti-Western rhetoric. At the same time, even in the Russian media itself one can find many publications stating that this quote has nothing to do with Slobodan Milosevic. For example, in November 2017, the publication MK.ru wrote that Russian State Duma deputy Natalia Poklonska used a fake quote from Milosevic about the West as a “mad dog”. They write that “despite its (quotes - editor’s note) popularity in Russian nationalist circles, it is unknown in the original, just as its source is unknown”. But already in March 2023, MK.ru published a material entitled “In the State Duma and the Federation Council they mentioned Milosevic’s prophetic appeal to the Russians after the bombing of Yugoslavia”, in which the same fake quote was presented under the guise of a real one - these words, as they say in the material , Milosevic allegedly said during his last speech.