'Part of our recovery’
Serbia supplies ammunition to Kiev through third countries

June 23, 2024, 12:20 am

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After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Serbia is striving to remain neutral and not join Western sanctions. However, the country sells ammunition that ends up in Ukraine via a bypass route. President Vucic confirms this practice. The work is important to the local arms industry.

Serbia has secretly increased its munitions sales to the West, which ultimately benefits Ukraine’s defense – even though it is one of only two European countries not to join Western sanctions against Russia. Estimates available to the Financial Times indicate that arms sales worth around €800 million have reached Ukraine via third parties since Russia’s war of aggression. According to the report, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described this amount as largely accurate. He presented the situation as a business opportunity and stressed that he would not take sides in this war.

„This is part of our economic recovery and important for us. Yes, we are exporting our ammunition,” he said in an interview. “We cannot export to Ukraine or Russia…but we have many contracts with the Americans, the Spaniards, the Czechs and others. What they do with them in the end is their own business.”

Vucic continued: „Even if I know where the ammunition ends up, that’s not my job. My job is to make sure we handle and sell our ammunition legally. I have to take care of my people, that’s all. That’s all.” I can say that we have friends in Kiev and Moscow. When asked if €800 million was in the „right range”, he replied, not in a year, but „maybe in two or three years, something like that.”

Distance from Putin

Serbia is not a member of NATO or the European Union, and the country’s population has long-standing ties with Russia while harboring grudges against the West following NATO’s bombing of the country in 1999. Belgrade also expects Moscow to block international recognition of Kosovo, a former Serbian province recognized by most Western countries, but Russia and China rejected United Nations membership.

Vucic has resisted Western pressure to impose sanctions on Russia, although he says he is determined to include his country in the European Union. He has also tried to play it safe and keep his distance from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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“Europe and the United States have worked for years to distance Vucic from Putin,” a Western diplomat told the newspaper, adding that one of the key players was US Ambassador Christopher Hill, who arrived in Belgrade a month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. „Everyone expected Hill to fight Vucic, but his only goal was to distance Belgrade from Moscow,” the diplomat said. „He succeeded. Vucic has not met Putin for years, and has not even contacted him.”

Serbia had a thriving defense industry during the Cold War, when it was still part of Yugoslavia, and produced Soviet-caliber munitions that are still widely used in the Ukrainian armed forces to this day. Serbia is also joining the global trend to increase its arms sales. However, Serbia’s involvement in the flow of ammunition to Ukraine is so vague that it is not reflected in official statements, diplomats and analysts say according to the Financial Times. He added that the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which monitors support for Ukraine, did not track Serbian activities directly and found no systematic evidence of Serbian contributions.

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