The finalization of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s plan to resolve the political crisis is going ahead in step with the silencing of United Media, the Nova.rs portal said adding that its claim is confirmed by new information about a regarding the completion of a new job classification inside the rebellious United Media outlets, which could be implemented in the very near future.
According to the portal, the architects of this plan are the same people who devised the Lucic–Miler plan with former N1 board chief Brent Sadler as the executor.
Nova.rs said that the drafting of the new 5-member editorial board that is supposed to safeguard the “independence” of United Media’s editorial policy, is nearly finished. The team assembled by Sadler, a retired CNN journalist, could be inaugurated soon.
Coincidentally or not, all other political processes in Serbia that depend on the regime’s strategy have been on hold for months: from the inevitable snap elections demanded by students and street protests following the November 1, 2024 Novi Sad Railway Station tragedy that claimed 16 lives to the recently revived lithium mining project.
Sadler’s role and ties to the regime
Nova.rs reported in November 2025, quoting sources in regional United Media editorial office that Sadler might soon officially assume one of the key roles within United Media, Vladimir Lucic, CEO of the state-controlled Telekom Serbia, responded in December last year. He attempted to minimize Sadler’s role in the reorganization, saying that someone else—not the former CNN journalist—would play that role. Lucic is informed about the implementation of the plan he had agreed upon with the new CEO of United Group, Stan Miler.
However, Nova.rs reports that the formation of the editorial board is already nearing completion. Its competencies could include selecting editors-in-chief and senior editors in the media operating under the United Media umbrella in Serbia and the region.
As the portal has previously written, since the beginning of the crisis within United Group and the removal of people close to the previous management, Brent Sadler has played a leading role in a negative campaign against his former employer Dragan Šolak. From interviews in Croatia’s “Nacional” to Israeli and European media controlled by investment lobbies, Sadler has persistently sought to justify the new management’s decisions by attacking N1 and Šolak.
Sadler has also received strong support from Serbian media outlets—Informer, Alo, B92, and others—close to Aleksandar Vucic. As if on cue, they carried his statements and interviews in which he repeatedly questioned the editorial policy of United Media outlets.
The Lucic–Miler deal is the Statopoulos–Vucic deal
That there is indeed an agreement between the new management of United Group and Aleksandar Vucic was demonstrated by an audio recording published in August 2025 by OCCRP, a journalistic network investigating organized crime and corruption. In the recorded conversation between Stan Miler, CEO of United Group appointed after the removal of Dragan Šolak, and Lucic, it is clearly stated that there is an agreement on changes within United Media that would “make these companies small,” remove Aleksandra Subotić, director of United Media, and that this is ultimately expected by Aleksandar Vucic, who had agreed on the plan with Nikos Stathopoulos, a representative of the investment fund BC Partners, the majority owner of United Group. Vucic himself confirmed in public appearances that he had met with Stathopoulos. He also repeatedly announced layoffs at United Media, allegedly scheduled for November 2025.
At the time, Miler asked Lucic for more time to implement the plan. Meanwhile, editors at United Media outlets have repeatedly asked their management to clarify the planned reorganization, as well as the offer for a management buyout of the media they run. The most recent urgent request for a meeting on this topic was sent this month, but it remains unanswered.
Vucic’s electoral and lithium dilemmas
The fact remains, however, that the Vucic who once announced layoffs at United Media is not the same Vucic who is now struggling with a rapid drop in ratings and a broad civic revolt led by students. In the past, the president resolved such crises through elections, but he is now hesitant to take that step. The architecture of his future electoral victory has been based on increased repression—new loyalist cadres in the police, the discrediting of the prosecution through the so-called “Mrdić’s laws,” and a new composition of the Constitutional Court whose new president, Vladan Petrov, has openly expressed admiration for Vucic’s policies and charisma.
As Nova has already written, this mosaic cannot be complete without the pacification of United Media outlets in Serbia, which continue—despite pressure, threats, and attacks—to report critically on the SNS regime.
That is why Vucic needs the final realization of the Lucic–Miler plan. Then elections would follow, along with repression and—why not—the revival of the lithium mining project. National Assembly Speaker Ana Brnabić recently pointed out on social media that Finland is beginning the implementation of a lithium mining project and that Serbian citizens had been misled regarding this issue. For Aleksandar Vucic, halting this project was a major missed opportunity.
Source: N1
