The Russian Party (; , RS) is a political party in Serbia that claims to represent the Russian ethnic minority. The party gathers a number of pro-Russian citizens, mostly Serbs. The party's president is Slobodan NikoliÃÂ, a former vice-president of the People's Peasant Party. The party competed in the 2023 parliamentary election in alliance with the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
According to its program, the Russian Party advocates Serbia's entry into the Eurasian Economic Union, and the full membership of Serbia in the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The party also advocates increasing cooperation with the Russian Federation in the field of economy, culture and education.
The party has faced accusations of being a satellite organization of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) that exploits minority party electoral advantages. Legal expert Sofija MandiÃÂ described the party's participation as a "satellite" of the ruling party, suggesting that "these are votes from Serbian Progressive Party, which in this way tries to create another 'reserve player' for itself." MandiÃÂ characterized the party as "a political group that does not exist in real political life, appearing only when elections come." Minority parties in Serbia benefit from lower electoral thresholds, needing only to pass the "natural threshold" rather than the standard 3% census required for majority parties.
In the June 2024 Nià ¡ local elections, the party won a single mandate with 1,224 votes in a city where only 121 residents identified as ethnically Russian in the 2022 census. This mandate proved decisive, as both the SNS and the opposition lists had won exactly 30 seats, which is one short of a majority. The party's representative, Tihomir PeriÃÂ, subsequently formed a coalition with SNS, stating "I'm not Russian, I'm a Russophile." Of the eight candidates on the Nià ¡ list, only one had a Russian name.