Serbian President Vucic Warns EU not to Press Belgrade Over Anti-Russian Sanctions

Aleksandar Vucic has repeatedly made it clear that Belgrade will not slap sanctions on Russia even though Serbia supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity amid Moscow’s ongoing special operation in the country.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has warned the EU against threatening and pressurising Belgrade to follow the Western countries’ path and impose sanctions on Russia.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he referred to a draft European Parliament resolution calling on Serbia to introduce anti-Russian sanctions if the country really wants to join the EU.

Vucic stressed that Serbia “pays a heavy price for not imposing sanctions against Russia”, pledging that his country “will continue to adhere to principles that are not observed by others”.

The 52-year-old recalled that Serbia remains the only European country that has not slapped Russia with “any restrictive measures”.

The Serbian president added that he was proud that there was neither anti-Ukrainian nor anti-Russian hysteria in Serbia, which he said “would not allow anyone to destroy the monument to the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in [the city of] Novi Sad, […] as well as the works of [prominent Russian writers Fyodor] Dostoevsky and [Leo] Tolstoy”.

He spoke after Serbia’s Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin told journalists earlier this week that Belgrade should reconsider its planned goal of joining the EU due to Western pressure to join international sanctions on Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine.

Regarding the draft European Parliament resolution, Vulin claimed that the document clearly shows that the EU does not want Serbia’s membership," and that it is "high time" for Serbia to reconsider its push for accession to the bloc.

Touching upon Belgrade’s unwillingness to join ranks with the West in placing sanctions against Moscow, the interior minister stressed that Russia remains a long-standing friend of Serbia.

Earlier this month, President Vucic said that Serbia had voted in favour of the resolution to suspend Russia's membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) under the "threat of facing sanctions and increasing pressures" from the West.

“People asked why we didn't vote against or didn't abstain from voting. However, if we abstained, other countries will go against us and the pressure will increase”, he said.

Russia's Special Op in Ukraine

The US and its Western allies introduced “severe” sanctions packages against Russia after President Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of a special military operation on 24 February to "demilitarise and de-Nazify" Ukraine following requests for assistance from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), which saw weeks of intensifying shelling by the Ukrainian Army.

According to the Russian Defence Ministry, the operation, which Putin has repeatedly said unfolds as scheduled, only aims to destroy Ukraine’s military infrastructure with high-precision weapons. The ministry said in late March that the Russian troops had successfully completed the operation’s first stage so as to focus on the main task of liberating Donbass from Ukrainian forces.