- 5/22/2025
Chay Bowes presents the first part of his groundbreaking documentary, "A War in the Shadows", uncovering the vast and often unseen network of NGOs operating in Europe โ many funded by foreign money and elite influencers ๐๐ฐ. With courageous journalism and exclusive insights, Bowes exposes how dissent is being silenced and how the right to disagree is under threat in modern Europe ๐โ๏ธ. This is not just a film โ it's a call to defend democratic debate and transparency. Watch, share, and stand for the truth. ๐ฃ๏ธ๐๏ธ
#ChayBowes #WarInTheShadows #InvestigativeJournalism #NGOs #ForeignFunding #EuropePolitics #FreeSpeech #Censorship #TruthMatters #MediaControl #PublicAwareness #Transparency #FreedomOfExpression #DocumentarySeries #ExposingTruth #PoliticalInfluence #ElitePower #CivilLiberties #FightForFreedom #IndependentMedia
#ChayBowes #WarInTheShadows #InvestigativeJournalism #NGOs #ForeignFunding #EuropePolitics #FreeSpeech #Censorship #TruthMatters #MediaControl #PublicAwareness #Transparency #FreedomOfExpression #DocumentarySeries #ExposingTruth #PoliticalInfluence #ElitePower #CivilLiberties #FightForFreedom #IndependentMedia
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NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to a rainy Belgrade, Serbia, and welcome to a war in the shadows.
00:05We're on the trail of hundreds of millions of dollars in euro in foreign cash and aid
00:11that's getting pumped into this country and many other countries around the world.
00:15Now, there's a big protest here.
00:17It just so happens we've landed right in the middle of the biggest protest here in decades.
00:21But we're not that interested on which side of the argument the coin drops down onto.
00:26What we're interested in is the money.
00:29Where's it coming from? Where's it going?
00:32And how is it influencing the rights of ordinary Serbs to make decisions under their own flags?
00:38Let's go.
00:49It's hardly surprising that Serbia has become a hotbed for hundreds of foreign NGOs.
00:53It's surrounded by EU states that, let's face it, don't share Serbia's traditional view of the world.
00:58It's a small country of 6 million people and it's being flooded with cash and influence from abroad.
01:05Among the largest and best known NGO groups here in Serbia are the Civic Initiative,
01:09the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, the YIHR,
01:12the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability, the CRTA,
01:16and let's not forget the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, or CRIC, who we'll meet later on.
01:21Now, according to our sources and investigations, these organisations are the top recipients of Western funding here,
01:29including from infamous organisations like USAID and the NED, the National Endowment for Democracy,
01:35as well as funds from Great Britain and individual EU countries via their embassies.
01:41And let's never forget the philanthropic billionaires, and they're not missing out either,
01:46with Soros and Rockefeller getting in on the act.
01:50All these groups use any opportunity to jump on a political bandwagon and promote their globalist view of the world.
01:57Now, we sat down with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Vulin and asked him just how big a problem NGOs have become.
02:04Just some of the numbers. In 2025 alone, over $15 million has come in from the United States.
02:11We know that since 2020, โฌ150 billion has been spent by the EU on what they call in-country influence media society.
02:22You've got the Soros Foundation. We've got over 200 British NGOs operating in Serbia.
02:28And some of them are churches. Some of them are evangelistic missionaries.
02:35Serbia isn't Africa. Serbia is a well-established ancient civilisation, an orthodox country.
02:42What's going on? Why is the EU, the Americans and various other, let's say, societal influencers so interested in Serbia, in your view?
02:54You know, we are not a very big country, as you know. It's only 6 million of us.
03:02And there is absolutely no logical explanation why they're pouring that kind of money in Serbia and why they're so eager to change the government in Serbia.
03:13They can do it in some other way.
03:15But, no, we are, you know, Serbs, Serbs are kind of strange, strange nation.
03:21Because, you know, we, we, we occupied much bigger, much bigger map in historical means than on geographical map, you know.
03:34Serbs are important.
03:35But, why we are so important right now?
03:38Exactly. Why right now?
03:40Because of Russia.
03:42If you want to make government who will impose sanctions on Russia, who will make a big quarrel with Russia, you must change us.
03:51You know, during our entire history, the West always insists that we must be in some kind of quarrel with Russia.
04:00And that our quarrel must be final, must be last, you know.
04:06And for a thousand years, we never do that.
04:09Never.
04:10Not even during the occupation of Serbia.
04:14We have some kind of puppet, puppet state, collaborationist regime, controlled by Germans.
04:23But, not even they, they not sent, not even one Serbian soldier against the Soviet army.
04:32Not even one.
04:33So, imagine, in that time we do not do that.
04:38And do you expect of us that we do that now?
04:40Strangely enough, when we tried to talk to protesters, mostly students and high school kids,
04:46they'd immediately ask us to cut the cameras.
04:48It also became very clear to us that the protesters were not exactly sure why they were protesting in the first place.
04:56There was a carnival atmosphere and there was also a sense that everyone wanted to be there just because it was happening.
05:01There was no specific changes they wanted to see.
05:05Sometimes we even saw what can only be described as handlers coming by to tell them not to talk to the press.
05:11Corruption, you say?
05:12Yeah, and everything else.
05:16You should ask somebody else.
05:18I'm sorry.
05:18We don't want to be recorded.
05:20Why is everybody so scared to talk about it?
05:22If there's corruption and every time we see students with signs, nobody will tell us why they're protesting.
05:28We just don't want to be recorded, that's all.
05:30It's all written on the Instagram page.
05:33I don't know who's writing the Instagram page.
05:36Maybe you should ask students in Yellow West because they're the most informed ones.
05:41But you're informed, you're students, you're holding the signs.
05:44I mean, why can't you guys tell me what the problem is?
05:47It isn't, huh?
05:49The camera really wants to be recorded.
05:52But you're walking around the streets holding a big sign and you don't want to be on the camera.
05:56Yeah.
05:56But what?
05:57It's hard to put it in words.
05:58We know why we're protesting for the camera.
05:59And we don't want to be recorded, okay?
06:01Okay, okay.
06:03Thanks.
06:03So, again, nobody wants to talk about it.
06:09That's like the third group that have told us that they don't want to talk about it.
06:13But they're happy to walk around the streets with a big sign, but they don't want to talk about why they've got the sign.
06:25So here we are in Belgrade.
06:26Rainy day.
06:27A bit chilly.
06:28And if you're interested in covering up, plenty of clothes shops here for the old ladies of Belgrade.
06:36You know, but you've got to ask, what else is getting covered up here?
06:39There's an NGO called Crick.
06:41Very powerful.
06:41They've been involved in some of the biggest investigations into so-called corruption here in Belgrade.
06:46But it turns out this is their address.
06:48That's right.
06:49But there's nothing here to suggest that they're actually here.
06:52This is definitely their address.
06:53We've checked it out.
06:54We've tried to contact them and get them to talk to us.
06:57But guess what?
06:58They don't want to talk to us at all.
07:00You've got to ask yourself how a NGO, which is getting millions and millions of dollars and euros from the EU, from the United States, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, of course.
07:15They're getting the cash to fight corruption.
07:18We all know how corruption has gone with, you know, USAID.
07:23And this isn't the only one.
07:25There are hundreds of NGOs here in Serbia working to improve Serbian society by flushing millions of dollars in to basically undermine the democratically elected government.
07:38Now, you don't have to agree with them or disagree with them.
07:40This is about allowing Serbians to make their own decisions in their own country under their own flag.
07:46But these guys are very, very eager to make sure nobody knows what they're about, where they are, or even where they're living.
07:54Interesting stuff.
07:55So it's become absolutely obvious to us that Serbia has become the target of a huge multinational operation to flush cash and influence into this small Balkan state.
08:07Now, remember, you may think that because USAID has had its doors closed that the money's going to stop running in.
08:14That's not the case.
08:15The U.S. Department of State, National Endowment for Democracy, many, many other organizations, some of you've never heard of, are still working feverishly to influence Serbian democracy.
08:27We did our best to decipher it.
08:29Let's have a look.
08:29Its primary operators are the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability, CRTA, and the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia, IJAS, as well as the Belgrade Open School.
08:43Let's have a look at the CRTA.
08:45Aside from USAID, it's also getting support from UKAID.
08:49Bet you hadn't heard of that one before.
08:51Now, there's also groups like the European Endowment for Democracy, embassies of Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, and even the Czech Republic are getting involved.
09:00On top of all this, there are foundations involved in the game, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and our friends, of course, at the Open Society.
09:09Just to name a few, among the more shadowy players are some groups we've never even heard about before.
09:14But they've been active for a long time, like the Hansard Society, formed in the United Kingdom in 1944 to promote parliamentary democracy.
09:23As in the case with the European Endowment for Democracy or Open Society, these organizations fund several Serbian NGOs simultaneously, getting involved not just with the CRTA, but with the Independent Journalists Association and other groups.
09:37Now, this creates an ecosystem of groups and influence that constantly support each other.
09:42It's basically like a hydra. You kill one source of income and three more spring up in its place.
09:47And that's why, remarkably, it's actually impossible, even for the elected government, to say for sure just how much money has been really poured into their country.
09:57But what we do know for sure is the following.
10:00Let's look at USAID since 2001.
10:02The United States has provided nearly $1.2 billion for the implementation and maintenance of various projects in Serbia.
10:10In 2022, the EU provided grants totalling 1.5 million euros in that year.
10:17And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
10:19On the list are also philanthropic donations.
10:22And they amounted to 33.3 million euros.
10:26With, get this, 4,557 recorded donations.
10:31And the government of Serbia is still trying to investigate exactly what that money was used for and where it really ended up.
10:38One NGO, daily, spent around 2 million diners, it's around 20.000 euros, just on taxi driving.
10:48Nothing more.
10:49Daily, they were, where they drive themselves, to Paris and back, to Moscow and back.
10:56You know, 2 million diners daily.
10:58They, what they do, they just make that false, false ticket, whatever, guy took the money, give them cash, took some small part for themselves.
11:12And when you have that kind of cash, you can spend it and you can distribute.
11:16And influence.
11:17Of course.
11:17And you buy it.
11:18And how they do it?
11:19You know, they have some project.
11:22And project is about position of LGBTQ plus, minus, or whatever, in, for instance, in factories.
11:32So, there you have LGBTQ plus, minus in factories.
11:36There is no such a thing, of course.
11:37But, they said, we, you know, we investigate about it, we think about it.
11:42And, of course, you must pay for marketing for that.
11:45Yeah.
11:46People should know that thing happened.
11:49That's how they do it.
11:50They took the money, they give to the media, not about LGBTQ, not about that they, political leaders, have open space to speak about anything.
12:04And, of course, with that kind of money, you said, okay, we need some investigator in the field.
12:11And you have 10, 15, 100, who knows, so-called investigator.
12:17You pay them and they are in protest.
12:19Now, the UK has become one of the most aggressively involved states here in Serbia when it comes to funding NGOs and societal influence operations.
12:28There's around 210 British NGOs operating here, and they fund very strange activities, like butterfly conservation and the European Consortium for Political Research, whatever that's supposed to do.
12:42They also operate NGOs in a further 188 countries, altogether costing the ordinary UK taxpayer hundreds of millions a year.
12:52Now, notably, among these British NGOs, there's also many, many churches, Christian churches.
12:58And that surprised us, given that Serbia is a thousand-year-old traditional Christian Orthodox country.
13:04Why does the UK government want to flush cash into Serbia to convert Christians to Christianity?
13:10As you said, Great Britain, you know, Evangelistic Church or something like that, you know, in Orthodox country, one of the oldest Orthodox countries in Europe.
13:22So, yes, you know, one time I had a meeting with the Minister of Defence of Great Britain, just right off the exit, Brexit.
13:33And he told me, you know, we leave the Europe, but we will not leave the Balkan, and that's it, they are here, the British are here, the British are here, the British are in Sarajevo, the British are in Serbia.
13:49And everything that happened in the, I call, the Serbian world, that's been Serbia, Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Srpska, it's always, it's always made partly or partially or in major by British.
14:09Of course, it wouldn't have been fair if we hadn't contacted these NGOs directly.
14:13Well, we did knock on their doors, so we decided to try and call them.
14:15But unsurprisingly, they didn't seem to want to talk to us at all.
14:19In fact, they didn't even want to pick up the phone.
14:29So, this is Crick in Belgrade.
14:31It's business hours.
14:35And it's the third time I've tried to contact them.
14:39And you can see, that's their published number.
14:43But Crick doesn't want to talk to me, or anybody else, it seems.
14:46Maybe since USA cut the cash, they haven't been able to pay the phone bill.
14:53There we go.
14:54Cut off.
14:57So, this is the CRTA.
14:59And the time in Serbia, in Belgrade, where they say they're based, is 2.47 in the afternoon.
15:10And again, this is the third time I've made this call to CRTA.
15:17And this is the published number on their website.
15:21Now, remember, we went to visit them as well.
15:23But yet again, nobody seems to want to answer the phone to answer our questions about where
15:31they get their money from, are they influenced by foreign powers or money.
15:38Gone.
15:39Okay, let's try this one.
15:41You ever get that kind of feeling that you're just not wanted?
15:44Well, guys, there you go.
15:48We knocked on their doors.
15:50Nobody there.
15:51An old underwear shop.
15:52Nice part of town.
15:54We've called them.
15:55Nobody wants to talk to us.
15:56Nobody wants to talk to us on the street.
15:59We just wanted to give people a platform to give us their side of the story.
16:04But it seems they're very, very reticent to engage with us or anyone else when it comes
16:12to answering some questions that you guys might want answered.
16:22Something we noticed about the protests here in Belgrade and Serbia is the fact that there
16:27are a lot of young people here, not just students from universities, but kids from high schools
16:32and their families, all getting involved, all out on the streets.
16:49So we interviewed one of the Serbian ministers in charge of family and demographics.
16:55Let's have a listen to what she had to say.
16:58In regular proceedings, the biggest problem is the fact that a number of schools are on
17:02strike.
17:03The main issue is that the universities are blocked.
17:06And I have to explain the phenomenon of the plenum, which undermines all democratic principles
17:11because it involves a gathering of a small number of students.
17:16Plenums consist of 3 to 5 percent of students at the universities, no more than 5 percent.
17:22The remaining 95 percent of students have not been asked whether they agree with this.
17:27And that is the formula of the tyranny of the minority over the majority.
17:34Now, of course, Serbia is far from being the only country under huge pressure from foreign
17:39influence groups.
17:40But as we said earlier, there's a glaring lack of EU and NATO support on display in Belgrade.
17:45And that's because both of those are extremely unpopular with the Serbian people.
17:50And that's on both sides of the political divide.
17:53The Serbs aren't too keen to man the barricades for Victoria Nuland and the globalist elites.
17:58And that's in stark contrast to what I've seen in another country under extreme pressure
18:03by foreign NGOs.
18:05And that's Georgia.
18:06Now, I was there last year investigating NGO operations.
18:09And what I saw was really quite shocking.
18:12Thousands of anti-Russian posters, NATO flags, British, American and EU flags were everywhere.
18:18I even saw handwritten posters which students were paid to write and leave deposited around
18:24the town in areas where protests were happening.
18:27But the most interesting part came when I tried to talk to some of the so-called protesters
18:33whose banner was featured on the BBC and CNN as a symbol of Georgian resistance to Russian
18:40interference.
18:41And it turns out that they weren't Georgians at all.
18:45Do you speak English?
18:46A little bit, yeah.
18:47What group are you from?
18:50From Italy.
18:51From Italy?
18:52Italy.
18:52Wow, okay.
18:53Are you Georgian, Italian?
18:55No, we are an activist movement for human rights in Italy.
19:03And we work here for the election.
19:07Okay, okay.
19:09Georgian is not Russia.
19:11Okay.
19:11Why is it in English to sign?
19:13Why have you written it in English?
19:15Because it's international language.
19:19It's clear.
19:20Yeah.
19:21Well, I wouldn't be able to read it if it was Italian because I'm Irish.
19:25So I wouldn't know.
19:27But I was interested, yeah.
19:28I suppose everybody speaks a bit of English, really.
19:30It's about the messaging, yeah.
19:32Yeah.
19:33Yeah, and you came all the way from Italy to be here.
19:37Yeah.
19:37Wow, wow, that's incredible.
19:40Super.
19:41We have a demonstration in Italy too.
19:43Yeah, who do you demonstrate against in Italy?
19:46In Italy for Georgia.
19:47Oh, for Georgia.
19:48Okay.
19:49Saturday.
19:50Okay.
19:51In Milan, in Roma, in Turin.
19:54Uh-huh.
19:55And do you think the election was fair?
19:58Yeah.
19:59No, here in Georgia.
20:00Yeah.
20:00You think it was a fair election?
20:03You don't think there was any interference or any problems?
20:05No, no, no.
20:06You think there was?
20:07Oh, yeah.
20:08It was.
20:09Okay.
20:09And you think Russia was behind that?
20:12Yes.
20:12Yeah, it was.
20:12Mm-hmm.
20:14And this is where it gets really interesting.
20:16The people holding their English language signed outside of the Georgian parliament
20:20aren't just big-hearted Italians interested in democracy.
20:23That's not the case.
20:25They are high-level members of a small radical Italian political group,
20:30Silvia Manzi and Igor Bonny.
20:33Now, they're part of the pro-Ukrainian, pro-European and pro-NATO party,
20:38the Italian radicals.
20:40And they receive their funds from, guess where?
20:42George Soros.
20:44Of course, this isn't just about Serbia.
20:46It's about Georgia, it's about Slovakia, and it's also about Hungary.
20:51Any country who refuses to bend their knee to the globalist agenda
20:54is finding themselves in the crosshairs.
20:56First of all, why we don't have in Serbia NATO flags or EU flags?
21:02They want to make that kind of mistake.
21:04They do it last year.
21:07There was some kind of protest, Serbia against the violence, something like that.
21:12And there was openly opposition, lead by opposition, with NATO and EU flags.
21:20And it's collapsed.
21:21Because most of the people in Serbia don't like NATO.
21:24We despise NATO.
21:26You know, when you say, when you do ordinary service, say something about NATO,
21:30you say, no, no, no, no, just don't speak me about it.
21:33You know, they're criminals.
21:34They were criminals.
21:35They killed our children.
21:36I don't want to see their flag.
21:38The European Union, almost the same.
21:41The European Union is led by liars.
21:45Liars and people who, you know, we signed the Brussels Agreement with them 12 years ago.
21:51And nothing.
21:52Nothing happened.
21:53Liars.
21:54That's it.
21:55So, they won't repeat that kind of mistake.
21:58So, they speak people what they want to hear.
22:01And that's it.
22:02Nothing more.
22:03Opposition in Serbia is very unpopular.
22:05As we've said, it's not our job to get involved in internal Serbian politics.
22:11There's a government view.
22:12There's a protesters' view.
22:14And this is about them being allowed to sort that out in Serbia.
22:17A sovereign Serbia.
22:19But one thing that really interested us was the fact that the EU was particularly unpopular.
22:26And that's across the divide.
22:28I spoke to Mario ZNA, the most influential podcaster in Serbia.
22:33And he gave us a little glimpse into how Serbs view the European Union.
22:38There is a big difference between Ireland and Serbia right now.
22:42And that's because Serbia is not a part of the European Union.
22:47And as much as they are giving money to Serbian NGOs and other organizations for 20 years, 25 years since Slobodan Miloลกeviฤ and 5th of October, they gave billions with USAID, with other foundations, other embassies.
23:09But the European Union right now has an approval rate in Serbia around 20% tops.
23:15So that brings us to the end of our first part of the War in the Shadows.
23:19It's taken a lot of effort, a lot of work to shine a light into those shadows to find out just how much effort and money and political influence is getting poured into countries to go essentially against the democratic will of the people.
23:34Like we say, it's not about what the argument is.
23:37It's about the ability of people to do things in a sovereign way under their own flags.
23:42We're not finished.
23:43We think there's lots more secrets to be uncovered.
23:46So stick with us for the next episode.
23:49Thanks for watching.
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