Zelenskyy to Visit Russia-Friendly Serbia for First Time
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- Zelenskyy will make his first official visit to Serbia on Saturday, announced late Thursday by the office of Serbia's populist President Aleksandar Vucic; Zelenskyy's office has not officially confirmed the trip to Belgrade.
- Vucic has refused to join international sanctions against Russia, citing historic ties between the two Slavic nations, but Belgrade has nonetheless provided aid to Ukraine and promised to help rebuild after the war.
- Serbia relies almost entirely on Russia for energy supplies, and its EU membership bid has been stalled partly because of its Moscow policies and democratic backsliding under Vucic, who has faced a year of youth-led protests since a November 2024 train station disaster killed 16 people.
- Russia last year accused Serbia of exporting arms to Ukraine through NATO member states — a move Moscow described as a "stab in the back."
- Vucic said he and Zelenskyy will discuss cooperation and EU membership paths, but insisted Serbia's position on Russia sanctions "has not changed and this will remain so for the time being."
- Vucic has traveled to Ukraine twice to attend summits on European support for Kyiv's fight against Russian aggression, but refused both times to sign a joint declaration calling for tougher sanctions against Moscow.
- Djordje Vlajic, a senior editor at Belgrade's independent Fonet news agency, said Zelenskyy is "sending a message to Russia that he is taking over its key allies in the Balkans," while Vucic wants to "send a signal to Brussels that he shares their position about the war."
Why it matters: Vucic gets to signal EU alignment on the war without actually sanctioning Russia, while Zelenskyy symbolically courts a key Balkan ally of Moscow. For Serbia, the stakes are concrete: EU funds and membership progress remain conditional on its Russia ties and democratic backsliding — both of which Vucic refuses to address. The visit is political theater that leaves Serbia's structural dilemma untouched.
