BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — As the war in Ukraine rages, Serbia’s president announced that he has secured an “extremely favorable” natural gas deal with Russia during a telephone conversation Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has refused to explicitly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and his country has not joined Western sanctions against Moscow. Vucic claims he wants to take Serbia into the European Union but has spent recent years cementing ties with Russia, a long-time ally.
The gas deal is likely to be signed during a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Belgrade early in June — a rare visit by a ranking Russian official to a European country since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began Feb. 24.
Vucic said he told Putin that he wished “peace would be established as soon as possible.”
Serbia is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas, and its main energy companies are under Russian majority ownership.
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Serbia ignores EU sanctions, secures gas deal with Putin https://t.co/p13dTzNNgK pic.twitter.com/W1lYRyzOXu
— The Hill (@thehill) May 30, 2022
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