Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and former intelligence chief Aleksandar Vulin arrived in Russia on Wednesday, where he is scheduled to meet with Vladimir Putin, less than a week after Serbia purchased Rafale jets, Serbian media reported. Vulin, who is under US sanctions, resigned as intelligence chief in November 2023. “The United States and the European Union are demanding my head so as not to impose sanctions on Serbia”he had then affirmed.
He is due to meet the Russian president on the sidelines of a forum organized economic in Vladivostok. He was appointed deputy prime minister in the spring, after the victory of President Aleksandar Vucic’s party in the last elections. Serbia, which has never imposed sanctions on Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, maintains good relations with Moscow, and Aleksandar Vulin is one of its architects.
France, which helped Dassault Aviation sell 12 Rafale fighter jets to Serbia at the end of August, hoped to distance Belgrade from Moscow, which had until now supplied combat aircraft to Serbia. “The purchase of Rafale was made for military reasons”Aleksandar Vulin told the Russian agency TASS the next day, “and will in no way have a negative impact on relations between the Republic of Serbia and the Russian Federation. Serbia remains militarily neutral and will not join the anti-Russian hysteria or any form of anti-Russian sanctions”.
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