Is it getting harder for Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić to maintain his balancing act between Moscow and the West? Why else, after all, would Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) suddenly revive a year-old story about covert arms supplies to Ukraine?
Back in June of last year, the Financial Times splashed the story that Serbia had exported around €800 million (£673 million) worth of ammunition to third parties that then ended up being transferred to Ukraine. At the time, Vučić did not try to deny this, but said that it had nothing to do with Serbia. ‘We have had many contracts with Americans, Spaniards, Czechs, others,’ he said. ‘What they do with that in the end is their job.’
This is a warning and a gift all in one
This is nonsense. Ammunition, like weapons, is covered by the international system of end-use certificates, which control their re-export. It is, of course, possible for unscrupulous facilitators to find some loopholes in the system, but €800 million worth? Hardly.
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