Serbia never sold weapons or ammunition to Ukraine or Russia, although Serbian arms might have reached the battlefield via third countries, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday.
He spoke a day after Reuters reported that according to a classified Pentagon document, Belgrade had agreed to supply arms to Kyiv, which is fighting a Russian invasion, or sent them already.
“Serbia has not and will not export weapons to Ukraine,” Vucic told reporters, adding that it equally “has not and will not” export arms or ammunition to Russia, its traditional ally.
“There’s no document that can prove that,” he said.
Ukrainian servicemen train to shoot a machine gun from M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) during a training session, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Donbas region, Ukraine April 8, 2023. (credit: Yan Dorbronosov/Reuters)The document seen by Reuters, a summary of European governmental responses to Ukraine’s requests for military training and “lethal aid” or weapons, was among dozens of classified documents posted online in recent weeks in what could be the most serious leak of US secrets in years.
Reuters could not independently verify the documents’ authenticity.
Serbia inherited most of the former Yugoslavia’s military industrial facilities and has made billions of dollars from weapons exports. Vucic said the Balkan country would continue to invest in its defense facilities.
He further said he was “quite certain” that Serbian ammunition would appear “on one side or the other in the battlefield” in Ukraine, after having been exported to Turkey, Spain or the Czech Republic.
“They saw one shell (in Ukraine), one bullet. So what, and where else would they appear? There are several war zones around the world.” “Ammunition is used in wars for killing people,” Vucic said.
On Wednesday, Serbian Defence Minister Milos Vucevic and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic also dismissed the contents of the leaked intelligence as untrue.
Entitled “Europe|Response to Ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict,” the Pentagon document showed Serbia declined to provide training to Ukrainian forces, but had committed to sending lethal aid or had supplied it already.
Could Serbia provide weapons to Ukraine in the future?
It also said Serbia had the political will and military ability to provide weapons to Ukraine in the future.
Vucic’s government has professed neutrality in the Ukraine war and has long tried to balance historically close relations with Moscow with its goal of joining the European Union.
Although Serbia has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion at the United Nations and other international forums, it has so far refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow.
Belgrade also recognizes Ukraine as an independent state in its entirety, while Kyiv refuses to recognize the independence of Kosovo, Serbia’s former, predominantly ethnic Albanian southern province.