MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. The Serbian government must defend the will of the Serbian people, or, otherwise, the country may cease to exist, Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on his Telegram channel.

"Serbia’s current authorities are obligated to defend the will of the Serbian people and the choice of the majority. Everyone is well aware of what may happen otherwise: The country may cease to exist," he wrote.

In his view, whenever Washington and Brussels fail "to bring their puppets to power" in other countries through the ballot box, "a well-known scenario" is inevitably played out, wherein the US and EU claim that the elections were marred by procedural violations and, thus, they refuse to recognize their results as legitimate, and then "the situation is stirred up [from the outside], people are brought out to the streets, and attempts to stage a coup are organized."

"There is nothing new here. Any country that stands up for its independence, defends its national interests and values will encounter such challenges. Today this is happening in Serbia," the top Russian lawmaker said. He stressed that the coalition of incumbent President Aleksandar Vucic won the snap parliamentary elections. "And those whom Washington and Brussels were banking on were not supported by the people," Volodin wrote.

"Speaking of sovereignty, at its core is the citizens’ right to plan their future on their own, and to choose their country’s leadership and development path," he noted. The State Duma chairman added that representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly had served as observers of the Serbian elections and did not report any violations.

Members of the Serbia Against Violence opposition bloc, who started a series of rallies in front of the Republican Election Commission (REC) building in Belgrade on December 18, tried to storm city hall on December 24 but police officers dispersed the protesters. The protesters used flagpoles to tear down the door and broke windows by throwing stones and beer cans, also destroying video surveillance cameras. By midnight, the police arrived in force in the square near city hall and proceeded to disperse the protesters. The Serbian president, in turn, warned that the opposition's protests and their provocative statements would have no result, as in the country, "power is changed only at elections." According to him, "no matter what they try to do, there will be no violent change of power." Opponents of the country’s leadership say they are contesting the victory of the ruling party-led coalition in Belgrade's city council elections.