Serbian Commentator Dismisses Vučić’s Plan for the Ibar: Technically Almost Impossible, a “Daydream

Serbia is analyzing the possibility of diverting the course of the Ibar River within its territory, according to a statement by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. Authorities in Belgrade have begun work on the issue and have enlisted experts.

Speaking to a Serbian media outlet on Sunday, Vučić said that construction specialists, engineers and professionals from other fields had been called in. He delivered the warning in a threatening tone, stating that Serbia has several reasons to alter the course of the Ibar and that afterward they would see what the Albanians would do and how they would behave because, according to him, the Serbian people are being mistreated.

This is not the first time the Serbian president has put forward such an idea. In 2024, immediately after the attack on critical infrastructure at Ibër-Lepenc, of which Serbs are accused, Vučić said his country had a plan to divert the Ibar within Serbian territory.

Serbian commentator Zlatoje Martinov described the warning as a reckless statement detached from reality and an empty threat. According to him, diverting the river would be utterly absurd, as its technical implementation would be extremely complicated and would cost Serbia several billion euros.

Speaking to “Bota Sot,” Martinov questioned why Serbia would need to borrow such vast sums from foreign banks. He stressed that the country is barely managing to finance Vučić’s megalomaniacal “EXPO 2027” project, where construction is behind schedule, while the Serbian president is worried about whether all the buildings will be completed by next summer.

Martinov said that diverting the Ibar riverbed and “destroying Lake Gazivoda” would require not only billions of euros and many years of technical work, but also the approval of Europe and the rest of the world. According to him, Vučić does not have such approval, and no one can secure it because the intervention would amount to a form of crime against the people of Kosovo, as well as against the Serbs living in Kosovo, whom the Serbian president claims to support and for whom he swears his commitment.

For the commentator, Vučić’s idea sounds more ridiculous than frightening. He believes that misguided steps are often taken in moments of powerlessness and anger, while this threat against Kosovo would, in practice, be very difficult and even almost impossible to carry out. For this reason, Martinov described the plan as one of Aleksandar Vučić’s “daydreams.”

Any intervention in the course of the Ibar is of particular importance to Kosovo because the river is directly connected to the Gazivoda/Ujman water system and the Ibër-Lepenc canal.

Such an action would not simply be an ordinary diversion of the river’s course but would have direct consequences for Kosovo’s water and electricity supplies. The impact would particularly affect the two large power plants, Kosovo A and Kosovo B.

The European Union also responded to Vučić’s statements, calling for warnings about a possible diversion of the Ibar, as well as any action that does not help normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia, to be avoided.

On August 11, a European Commission spokesperson said that progress toward normalizing Kosovo-Serbia relations could be achieved only through dialogue.

In its response to Radio Free Europe, the European Commission stressed that both statements about possible changes to the river’s course and actions that do not support the goal of normalizing relations should be avoided.