“The Serbian military industry is trying to shoot Russia in the back”: Russian espionage launches a hard attack on Belgrade
Serghei Narîșkin (rear), director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, photographed during an April meeting of the Moscow Industrial-Military Commission, photo: Gavriil Grigorov-Kremlin Pool / Zuma Press / Profimedia Images
The Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accuses Serbian armament companies of providing Ukraine's ammunition “despite the” neutrality “declared by Belgrade at the official level,” reports Meduza.
In a press release entitled “The Serbian military industry is trying to shoot Russia in the back”, SVR states that “the contribution of the Serbian defense industry to the West triggered war” rises to “hundreds of thousands of projectiles for multiple rockets and howitzers, as well as a million
SVR argues that deliveries are made using False Final Recipient Certificates and through intermediate countries, including the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria.
“It is unlikely that such deliveries can be justified by” humanitarian considerations.
The Moscow Foreign Intelligence Service also enumens the Serbian defense companies that participate in what he describes as the “treadmill of death”.
“You have the impression that the desire of the Serbian workers in the field of defense and their employers to take advantage of the blood of the Fraterne Slavic peoples forced to forget who their true friends are and who their enemies are,” accuses SVR, adding that “Russia has repeatedly came to the help of Serbs in their most critical history.”
Serbia confirmed that ammunition produced in the country reaches the Ukrainian army
The Financial Times reported in the middle of last year that the volume of ammunition exports in Serbia which then entered Ukraine through third parties, amounted to about 800 million euros.
Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic did not denist deliveries and called the “generally correct” figure. At the same time, he mentioned that the export of ammunition “is part of its economic relaunch”.
“Yes, we export our ammunition. We cannot export it to Ukraine or Russia. But we have had many contracts with Americans, Spanish, Czechs and others. What I do in the end with them,” Vucic told the Financial Times at that time.
It is not clear what has now caused SVR to launch the harsh accusations against Serbia.
The Serbian president, described in praised terms by Kremlin
Earlier during May, Vucic counted among the world leaders who went to Moscow for the 80th anniversary of Victoria Day, the annual holiday in which Russia celebrates victory in World War II. The only head of state or government in the EU who participated in the ceremonies was Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
“Many have participated, despite the pressures, but if we talk about Vucic and Fico, this is simply an act of heroism,” Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, told the Russian public television.
The plane that transported Vucic to Moscow had to carry out an emergency landing in Baku due to worries about Ukrainian drones.
Just before Vucic's visit to Moscow, it was found that the authorities in Lithuania and Latvia had forbidden his plane to fly over their territories.
