BELGRADE: Serbia’s populist president said Wednesday that he hasn’t changed his mind about attending Vladimir Putin’s victory day parade in Moscow next month despite great pressure from the European Union over his decision.
European officials have warned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic that his visit to Moscow for the World War II commemorations would be a breach of the bloc’s membership criteria for potential new members and could derail the country’s declared EU ambitions.
The visit would also effectively amount to a show of support for Putin and Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
Vucic, who has often expressed pro-Russian views, has said that one of Serbia’s military units would be participating in the May 9 parade on the Red Square in the Russian capital. He also said that for the first time Serbia is taking part in “jointly” organizing the parade.
“In the coming period, we will be under pressure regarding the event in Moscow in which we have announced our participation,” Vucic told reporters.
Earlier this week, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc “made it very clear that we do not want any candidate country to participate in these events on the 9th of May in Moscow.”
Though he claims he wants to take Serbia to the EU, Vucic has maintained close relations with Russia and refused to introduce Western sanctions against Moscow, policies that have almost completely stalled the Balkan country’s accession talks with the 27-nation bloc.
Vucic has said he would travel to Moscow with his right-wing ally, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico. The Slovakian leader has branded as “disrespectful” remarks by Kallas warning European leaders against traveling to Moscow.
Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik has said he will also be attending.
At home, Vucic has faced massive student-led anti-corruption protests that have seriously shaken his autocratic 13-year rule. They started soon after the Nov. 1 rail station canopy collapse in the northern town of Novi Sad that killed 16 people. The collapse has been linked to murky deals with Chinese and other construction firms building in the Balkan country.
Also on Wednesday, Serbian parliament approved a new government packed with anti-EU ministers, including Information Minister Boris Bratina who has been shown recently setting an EU flag on fire and chanting “we don’t want the EU, we want union with Russia.”
The previous government collapsed under protesters’ pressure.
At the same news conference on Wednesday, Vucic cited a report by Russia’s spy agency, FSB, which claimed that widespread reports that the authorities used a sonic devise to target massive and peaceful anti-Vucic protests on March 15 in Belgrade are fake.
Sonic weapons, which use sound waves to incapacitate a person, have been used as crowd control devices.
“The Russian FSB categorically concluded that there was no use of any sonic weapons,” Vucic said. He did not elaborate how FSB had concluded this or whether the agency investigated the alleged incident in Belgrade.
