The Serbian weekly Vreme featured a cover story titled "The Living Hostages of the Dead General" in its September 3 edition, highlighting the ongoing influence of Ratko Mladic, a former military commander convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The article includes an image of Mladic's supporters allegedly beating a man, drawing attention to how the legacy of a single individual has been intertwined with the identity of the entire Serbian people. Mladic, who died in custody in the Netherlands on August 27, was the main architect of the Srebrenica massacre, which claimed nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslim lives in 1995. Vreme argues that Mladic's image as a national hero was carefully constructed over time by political leaders, media, and television in both Serbia and Republika Srpska. While Mladic began with a modest career in the Yugoslav People's Army, he later gained prominence through military victories in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he outmaneuvered less prepared opponents. Unlike the often chaotic leaders of Serbian paramilitary groups, Mladic was seen as a disciplined and present commander, which helped elevate his status. The article notes that the government of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was also tried by the ICTY, relied on the myth of Mladic as a "heroic general" to frame the entire Serbian people as being in solidarity with the war effort and the regime. Vreme also suggests that current Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who was a radical nationalist in the 1990s, has worked to rehabilitate Mladic’s image, possibly to justify his own political past during the 1991–1995 wars. According to Vreme, by focusing on Mladic as an individual rather than addressing the broader system that enabled his rise—such as propaganda, war profiteering, and nationalist ideology—Serbia was able to avoid confronting its collective past. The ICTY's judgment, which held Mladic personally responsible for his crimes, allowed the country to shift blame onto a single figure rather than the nation as a whole. However, the magazine warns that this approach has had lasting consequences, as young people in Serbia continue to idolize Mladic, with some even painting his image on murals and adopting the rhetoric of 1990s radical ideologues. This legacy is reinforced by school textbooks that obscure historical facts, media that reframe defeats as victories, and political leaders who often equate criticism of war crimes with attacks on Serbs.