The Spectator: Did Serbia Really Quarrel With Moscow?
- 1.06.2025, 11:28
There are two conspiracy theories.
Moscow's accusations against Belgrade that Serbian defense companies continue to supply ammunition to Ukraine may be just part of the play.
This is what Eastern Europe expert Mark Galeotti writes for The Spectator, analyzing a story about secret arms shipments from Serbia to Ukraine, announced by the Foreign Intelligence Service of the aggressor country Russia (SVR RF).
Serbian President Alexander Vucic has said that if it is indeed true, he will cancel the contracts in question, but as Galeotti notes, he did not seem as agitated as one might expect. Two conspiracy theories are circulating in Moscow to explain this, the columnist writes. According to the first one, the whole thing is a play, and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is helping Vucic by staging the quarrel. The Kremlin realizes that Belgrade has to play a double game and that the Serbian economy cannot afford to cut arms exports.
Bearing in mind that Vucic ruined his reputation in Brussels by visiting Moscow on May 9, this should restore his credibility in the eyes of Europeans, writes Mark Galeotti.
The second theory argues that this reflects the slow decline in the influence of Nikolai Patrushev, former secretary of the Russian Security Council. A frequent interlocutor of Vucic, Patrushev was the main driver of Moscow's "Serbian Trojan horse" strategy, the columnist points out. However, with the prospect of Serbia joining the EU more remote than ever, and hundreds of thousands of Serbian tank and artillery shells flowing into Ukraine, others now suggest that the current policy benefits Vucic more than the Kremlin.
There is probably some truth to each of these theories, Galeotti argues. Among other things, there is the realization that Moscow has severely limited its options for influence in the Balkans, and the choice is between Serbia (and Republika Srpska in Bosnia) or nothing. Hence the use of the Russian SVR for this campaign, an agency still close to Patrushev and with channels of communication with Belgrade.
On May 29, Russian intelligence said that, "according to information coming to them," Serbian defense companies were supplying ammunition to Ukraine, doing so in defiance of the country's declared neutrality. Moscow assures that key Serbian defense companies, including Yugoimport SDPR, Zenitprom, Krusik, Sofag, Reyer DTI, Sloboda, Prvi Partizan and others, are involved in these supplies.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed in a newspaper interview that his country exports ammunition.
"Yes, we export our ammunition. We cannot export to Ukraine or Russia, but we had many contracts with Americans, Spaniards, Czechs and so on. What they do with them is their business," he said.