The coalition government in Romania approved a decree on Tuesday that allows it to control the assets of local companies subject to international sanctions, such as Russia’s Lukoil. Lukoil operates 320 petrol stations across Romania. It is the third-largest refinery in the country and has offshore exploration rights for a part of the Black Sea.

This measure is similar in nature to the legislation that was passed by the EU neighbor Bulgaria last month to take control of Lukoil’s Neftohim Refinery. The Prime Minister Iliebolojan stated that the Cabinet would decide whether or not to take Lukoil’s local petrol stations in December.

However, in Serbia, no such measures are even being discussed, despite the fact that the Pancevo Oil Refinery began shutting down its production units on Tuesday due to a lack of crude oil for processing following sanctions imposed on the Serbian Oil Industry (NIS) by the US Department of the Treasury.

“For the life of me, I do not understand their [American] logic. I have had countless conversations with them. I ask why they are not giving us a license, the Refinery (in Pancevo) stops operating on Tuesday. The value of the company will then fall. I say that we will respect the sanctions, and that whatever they want will happen in 5 days,” Vucic said, commenting on the OFAC’s sanctions regime.

According to him, the United States imposed sanctions on NIS to exclude Russian management and then Russian ownership.

Well, duh.

“Of course, this is not based on international law. We are a small country, and we cannot function without oil. We have a single oil pipeline that the Croats closed as soon as the sanctions came into force,” said Vucic, who has repeatedly reiterated that it is not entirely clear to him what the Americans are doing now, N1 television reported.

The whole “it’s against international law” label that Serbian politicians and pundits, then echoed by the general population, is somehow considered a valid argument whenever Serbia gets smacked over its head by the West. The NATO interventions against the Serb wars in Bosnia and Kosovo are always labeled as “contrary to international law”, as if somehow the warfare orchestrated by Belgrade in the 1990s was lawful.

The entire public discourse, both the pro-government and the opposing camp, dares not propose the measures such as the ones in Romania and Bulgaria.

Just like the social taboo in Monty Python’s Life of Brian scene, when people get stoned for saying Jehovah, any public figure, regardless of their political affiliation, will never utter the n-word – nationalization, or anything that would imply that such a blasphemous thought would cross their minds.

The common citizenry acts as if it has already come to terms with the possibility of fuel shortages come January. Just hold fast, and eat mud, but don’t even think about the unthinkable – showing our Russian “brothers and allies” the door out of the oil industry. To be honest, there’s no rush. I mean, it’s not like Serbia is falling apart or anything like that.

A bit less excellent now.

Such a mindset is most likely the product of our hopes being fixed on the Witkoff-Dmitriev 28-point “peace” capitulation plan, which will end the aggression against Ukraine in Russia’s favor. The pro-government and opposition media are already busy presenting this to the public as a fait accompli.

The best-known Serbian military analyst, Aleksandar Radić, writes for Nedeljnik that “Ukraine must come to terms with the price of peace“, while Novosti writes “TRUMP’S PEACE PLAN DOOMED TO FAIL? ‘Putin has no reason to stop.'”

Most likely is that the general belief is that everything will return to business as usual afterwards – sanctions against Russia will be lifted, oil will flow, and Serbia will be rewarded for its loyalty to MAGA and the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, the Hungarian government keeps indulging in wishful thinking of acquiring the Russian stake in Russian-owned oil companies in Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria, blissfully unaware that the sanctions package doesn’t allow for monetary transactions with the Russian Federation and the sanctioned entities, making the whole point moot, but that didn’t stop Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin from discussing it during their meeting in Moscow on November 28th.