Don’t read too much into Vučić’s visit to Kyiv.
Vijesti.me reported that “Vučić said he was the only summit participant who did not sign the joint declaration to continue political, military, financial, and security support to Ukraine and step up pressure on Russia. The document accuses Russia of unjustified aggression on Ukraine and calls for an immediate end to the war with an unconditional withdrawal of the military from Ukraine.”
The European Union expects the candidate countries to align themselves with EU foreign policy, and has repeatedly called on Serbia to do so. Not sanctioning Russia ISN’T aligning itself with EU foreign policy, just a photo op with our Supreme Commander looking dorkly and talking nonsense.
A big nothingburger, with an added embarrassment that Serbia was the only delegation that did not attend the wreath-laying ceremony for fallen Ukrainian soldiers during the Ukraine-South East Europe summit in Kyiv. His electorate eats it up, it makes them feel important, defiant, and internationally respected.
This kind of behaviour doesn’t come consequence-free. The EU has already criticized Serbia for its close relations with Russia, and paused the Western Balkans Growth funds to Serbia due to the rule of law backsliding.
On the other hand, to please the pro-BRICS part of the electorate even more, Minister of Information and Telecommunications Boris Bratina, as a representative of the Government of Serbia, attended the farewell ceremony for the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as stated on the minister’s official Instagram account.
It was stated that Minister Bratina signed the book of condolences and expressed condolences to the people of Iran on behalf of the Government and people of Serbia.
On a completely unrelated note, here’s Mr. Bratina burning a flag of the European Union at a rally in 2009, he was then a member of the Conservative Movement Naši:
Back on the supposedly pro-Western front, Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic rejected accusations of Serbia being Russia’s Trojan Horse in Europe, saying Belgrade’s foreign policy is independent. “We Serbs are not little Russians.”
Kremlin did get into a funk over the visit of the speaker of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, to Serbia last week, and the public speech he gave during the conference of the leaderships of the parliaments of candidate countries for membership in the EU.
They were hosted by the Speaker of the National Assembly of Serbia, Ana Brnabić. Stefanchuk made the remarks that “Serbs are not little Russians” and called Stalin “one of the greatest criminals in history,” going on to say that “Stalin did not die, but lived on in his successor, Vladimir Putin.”
As usual, whenever Belgrade authorities do something that doesn’t please their Russian counterparts, the only Serbian interlocutors that the Russian agitprop managed to find to stand in “defense” of poor little Russia are local minor alt-righters who don’t carry any weight around.
So here’s what NOT to say when commenting on Serbia’s geopolitics: “No sustainable European security architecture in the Western Balkans can be built without Serbia. Its geographic position, economic weight, military capabilities, and political influence make it the pivotal state of the region.“, Nikola Lunić writes in the article “Serbia’s four pillars are cracking” in New Eastern Politics.
Serbianism 