Russia’s Balkan ally Serbia is taking yet one more step toward inching closer to Europe and away from Moscow as Belgrade looks for French fighter jets and European Union infrastructure money.
President Aleksander Vucic announced that Serbia would increase defense spending in an effort to modernize its military, with much of its inventory reliant upon old Soviet equipment. Serbia has shown interest in French jets since 2022 within the hopes of replacing outdated Soviet MIGs.
Serbian negotiations with France remain ongoing, in line with Serbian media.
Serbia, which has close cultural and political ties with Russia, has received significant military hardware from Moscow. Lately, Russia sent Serbia six MiG-29 fighters, 30 T-72 tanks, 30 armored vehicles, the Pantsir S1 air-defense system, and Kornet anti-tank missiles, in line with the German Marshall Fund.
A turn toward France could signal that Serbia is not less than partially comfortable with a modest pivot away from Russia as a way to solidify EU membership.
“Serbia is not going to sever all ties with Russia, but replacing Russian jets with French jets would show that Belgrade is tilting more westward, particularly since, for the last 4 years, France has emerged as Serbia’s primary political partner within the West,” Vuk Vuksanovic, senior researcher on the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, told Fox News Digital.
Serbia can be in line to receive its largest EU funding package value 600 million Euros to reconstruct the Belgrade railway by 2029. The project would help connect Western and Eastern Europe to Eurasia and Turkey.
Vucic has all the time tried to balance his relations with Belgrade’s traditional patron Russia while attempting to stay in the great graces of Europe. Serbia officially applied for EU membership in 2009, and its ongoing dispute with the previous province Kosovo, backed by Russia, stays a key point of contention for its path to the EU. Recently, nationalist protesters took to the streets in opposition to an EU-proposed plan to normalize relations with Kosovo.
A possible pivot aside, Serbia has not been completely on board with the EU’s commitment to helping defend Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“Until Serbia imposes sanctions against Russia, which is most unlikely to occur, no political move might be enough to satisfy the West,” Helena Ivanov, associate fellow on the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital.
While it makes political and practical sense for Vucic to buy more advanced fighter jets from France and accept EU aid, it remains to be likely not enough to totally ingratiate Serbia with EU leaders.
Many observers expect Serbia to proceed making good faith efforts to stabilize relations with the EU, but up to a degree.
“We are able to definitely expect many more coming from the Serbian government as they fight to take care of the balancing act. Nevertheless, apart from sanctions, I don’t think any of those might be enough in the long run,” Ivanov cautioned.
Although Serbia has not gone so far as joining Western sanctions on Russia, Serbia joined U.N. resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the referendums annexing territory within the eastern Donbas region, and voted as well Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Vucic also notably declared that Crimea is Ukraine, which Putin considers Russian territory, and any efforts to retake it could lead on to a dramatic escalation of the war by Russia.
