Serbian Defense Ministry Says Did Not Supply Ammunition to End Users in Ukraine

BELGRADE (Sputnik) - The Serbian Defense Ministry told Sputnik that it had not supplied ammunition to end users in Ukraine.

"Not a single one of our missiles, mines or projectiles since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine has been covered by an agreement or delivered in such a way that one of the parties to the conflict was the end user. Thus, enterprises from Serbia did not supply weapons and military equipment to Ukraine," the ministry said.

The ministry recalled that when deciding whether to grant consent to the export of weapons and military equipment, it was guided by the current international restrictions and sanctions of the UN Security Council in relation to individual states, organizations and entities.

"It must be borne in mind that in the course of the export of weapons and military equipment, the seller always requires the buyer to provide an end user certificate, which determines that the end user agrees that there will be no resale, re-export or transshipment of the batch to any other person or state without a written consent of the responsible authorities of the Republic of Serbia," it said.

Serbia cannot accept responsibility for the alleged violation of international norms by companies from other states, it added.

"Due to some media speculation that some foreign companies violated the provisions of the end user certificate, the Republic of Serbia demanded official explanations from the agencies of foreign states that issued this end user certificate and which must ensure its observance," the ministry said.

Serbian enterprise Krusik said earlier that it had studied and refuted the "documents" attached to the reports about the sale of missiles for the Grad MLRS to Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that Russia called on Serbia to clarify the situation with possible arms supplies to Ukraine, which she said was an extremely important topic for bilateral relations.