[6] In September 2017, the trial of those indicted in connection with the plot began in the Higher Court in Podgorica, the indictees including leaders of the Montenegrin opposition and two alleged Russian intelligence agents.

[7][8] In 2019, the Higher Court found guilty of plotting to commit ″terrorist acts″, also of "undermine the constitutional order of Montenegro" and first instance sentenced 13 people, including Montenegrin opposition leaders.

[10] In early May 2018 Olivera Lakić, an investigative journalist from the Montenegrin daily newspaper Vijesti, was shot and wounded in front of her house in Podgorica after she published a series of articles about allegedly corrupt businesses involving top state officials and their families.

[14] In mid-January 2019, a video clip from 2016 surfaced in which fotlrmer DPS-led regime former ally, Montenegrin-British businessman Duško Knežević, chairman of the Montenegro-based Atlas Group, appeared to hand the Mayor of Podgorica and high-ranked ruling party member, Slavoljub Stijepović, an envelope containing what Knežević later said was $97,000, to fund a Democratic Party of Socialists parliamentary election campaign.

[16] Protests against corruption within Montenegrin DPS-lead government have started in February 2019 soon after the revelation of footage and documents that appear to implicate top officials in obtaining suspicious funds for the ruling party.

After its ninth congress in November 2019, the ruling DPS dominantly increased its ethnic nationalist and even conservative discourse, by officially and institutionally supporting the rights of the canonically unrecognized Montenegrin Orthodox Church, announcing its "re-establishment".

[19][20] PM Marković and ruling Democratic Party of Socialists officials, including president Milo Đukanović and members of the cabinet blamed the Belgrade-based media and Government of Serbia for the current political crisis, destabilization and unrest across the country, claiming that the ongoing Church protests actually are not against the disputed law but "against Montenegrin statehood and independence."

[23][24][25] On 1 September, Milo Đukanović conceded defeat, accusing Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Belgrade-based media of interfering in the internal politics of Montenegro, as well of alleged trying to revive a "Greater Serbia policy".

[30] In late 2020 it was uncovered that a number of individuals close to the ruling DPS party, such as controversial religious leader Miraš Dedeić, were given free tickets or significant discount for the flights of the Montenegro Airlines.

[31] In December 2020, the new government cabinet announced the shutdown and liquidation of the company in the forthcoming weeks stating mismanagement and accumulating losses for several years.