06/27/2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP
As reported by Western publications, in particular the Financial Times, Serbia, which has always been considered a pro-Russian outpost in Europe, has secretly supplied Ukraine with ammunition worth about 800 million euros since the beginning of the full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation.
For the purpose of secrecy, the export of shells, mines and cartridges was carried out mostly through third countries.
Serbia recognizes the sale of ammunition to third countries
The statement of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, that he will not take the side of either Ukraine or Russia in this war is interesting. At the same time, he noted, the sale of Serbian ammunition through intermediaries is an opportunity for business development in Serbia and an important part of economic revival.
Specifically, Vucic said: “What they end up doing with it is their business. Even if I know where the ammunition goes, it’s none of my business. My job is to make sure that we handle our ammunition legally so that we sell it. In we have friends in Kyiv and Moscow. These are our Slavic brothers.”
At the same time, as OBOZ.UA already reported, Belgrade concluded many contracts, in particular with the USA, Spain and the Czech Republic, which are, in fact, the intermediary countries from which ammunition directly enters Ukraine.
Serbia will not prevent the sale of ammunition by Serbian companies to Western countries, even if they are supplied as part of military aid to Ukraine, Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic told AFP on Tuesday.
Even Russian sources write: “Serbia has dramatically increased the production of military products, and its defense enterprises have switched to work in three shifts to produce weapons that are sent to Ukraine.” Sources familiar with the situation in Belgrade told Kommersant about this.
US efforts to counter rapprochement between Serbia and Russia have succeeded
It can be stated that the joint diplomatic efforts of the USA and Europe regarding Serbia, which is not a member of the EU and NATO, turned out to be much more effective than the struggle with pro-Russian Hungary, which, on the contrary, is a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance.
At the same time, as reported by the European press, Europe and the USA have been working for years to distance Vučić from Putin. In particular, the decisive player in this diplomatic game was the current US ambassador to Serbia, Christopher Hill, who arrived in Belgrade in March 2022. It was his efforts that prevented Serbia from returning to the rapprochement between Belgrade and Moscow, which is dangerous for Europe and the United States.
In fact, for this reason, the US gave up pressure on Serbian President Vučić regarding the inadequacy of democratic reforms.
Serbia depends on Europe much more than on Russia
So it can be stated that Serbia can verbally support or not condemn the Kremlin for its aggression against Ukraine as much as it wants, but the lack of direct borders and logistical connections with the Russian Federation makes such support not very profitable.
In fact, Serbia is surrounded on all sides by EU and NATO countries, on which it depends economically and has a number of unresolved territorial and ethnic problems. Therefore, the only way for the survival of Serbia as a country is European integration as a strategic goal, which is why Belgrade’s support for Russia at the official level is almost absent, on the contrary – President Vucic has repeatedly mentioned the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, in particular not recognizing the annexation of Crimea.
In this regard, it is possible to emphasize the interesting contrast between Serbia and Hungary – the Hungarian government is ultra-pro-Russian, despite the fact that the population of Hungary mostly has a negative attitude towards Russian aggression. The situation with the Serbs is a mirror image – the population is mostly very supportive of Russia, but the country is led by a rather pro-Western and pro-European government.
Sanctions against the Russian defense industry force Serbia to give preference to Western weapons
Another important factor of Serbia’s “pro-Europeanness” is that the economic sanctions against Russia effectively put an end to Belgrade’s ability to buy, modernize and repair military equipment and weapons of Russian-Soviet origin. So for a country with unresolved territorial problems, the modernization of the Serbian army is a very important task that cannot be accomplished without European support. This is evidenced by the recent contract with France regarding military aviation, which our publication has already written about in detail.
It is obvious that Serbia perfectly understands all the dangers of depending on the supply of military equipment, weapons and ammunition from a country that is waging a criminal war and can barely manage to provide its own army without the help of other authoritarian regimes (Iran, North Korea, Belarus, etc.).
So, it can be stated that the prospects of European integration force the Vučić government to give priority to the EU over relations with Russia, which is physically far away. At the same time, unlike Belgrade, Orban’s government, having a country in the EU and NATO, succumbed to Russian corruption. Therefore, precisely the right diplomatic, political and economic influence can, as we see on the example of Serbia, fundamentally change the entire aspects of foreign policy, economy and military cooperation. In general, the loss of real influence on Serbia can be counted as another foreign policy failure of the Kremlin.
Other than Hungary and its Orb-anus, Serbia, mafia land’s usual mini me, has learned that betting on muscovy is a losing proposition.