On April 15-16, Serbian Foreign Minister Nikola Selakovic paid a working trip to Moscow at the invitation of Sergei Lavrov
In the State Duma, he heard from the chairman of the International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky that all the factions of the Russian parliament are united in their understanding that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia. At a meeting with Lavrov, Selakovic expressed gratitude for Moscow’s support for the integrity of the Serbian state. And he said that Serbia very much hopes that in the current 2021 Vladimir Putin will visit Serbia again.
At a press conference following the meeting, Lavrov warned the Western curators of the separatist regime of Pristina against conniving at the plans of a “Greater Albania” and further attempts to redraw the borders of the post-Yugoslav space on the merger of Kosovo and Albania).
When visiting the Prodexpo Food Industry and Agricultural Products Fair, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia could see the stand of his country, where eleven leading exporting companies to the Russian food market are represented (in 2020, Serbian producers supplied $52 million worth of products to Russia).
Selakovic met with Serbian businessmen working in Russia, where the minister said:
“Russia is a country with which we were able to build the Balkan Stream and ensure the safe supply of gas to our country, given that our needs due to economic development are growing from year to year. Today, together with Russian Railways, we are building the best and most modern railways. The Russians are among the best in the world in this direction”.
Cooperation between Russia and Serbia is not limited to this.
“We have good cooperation in the military sphere, between the defense ministries and the armies of the two countries, and there is no reason that this interaction would not be continued”, – Nikola Selakovic said. He made it clear that Belgrade intends to resume participation in the Slavic Brotherhood military exercises joint with Russia and Belarus, which he was forced to abandon a year ago under pressure from the West because of the Belarusian events.
Russia helped modernize the Serbian army by supplying MiG-29 fighters, Mi-17V-5 and Mi-35M helicopters, T-72 tanks, BRDM-2 armored vehicles, and Pantsir S-1 anti-aircraft systems. In October 2020, the project to create a representative office of the Russian Ministry of Defense under the Ministry of Defense of Serbia was approved by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. There is no such thing in any country – as well as the Russian-Serbian humanitarian center for rapid response to emergencies, which has been operating in Serbia since 2012.
In 2015, the then Prime Minister of Serbia and the future president of the country, Aleksandr Vucic, visited the Skolkovo innovation center and was impressed by what he saw. In January 2019, during Vladimir Putin’s visit to Belgrade, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Serbian government and the Skolkovo innovation center. At the end of 2020, a four-day online program was held at the Russian innovation center, in which Serbian start-up companies participated. And already in February of this year, the Skolkovo delegation visited the science and technology parks Belgrade and Cacak in Serbia. Specialists from Russia will deal with the digitalization of the Serbian healthcare system and start-up strategies in the field of the ecosystem.
We add that in 2019, in the presence of V. Putin and A. Vucic, the Director General of Rosatom Alexei Likhachev and the Minister of Innovation and Technological Development of Serbia Nenad Popovic signed an agreement on the implementation of joint projects in the field of peaceful uses of atomic energy and the creation of a Nuclear Science Center. technology and innovation. The center is supposed to open on the basis of the Belgrade Institute of Nuclear Sciences “Vinca”, where a zero-power reactor will be installed, producing radioactive isotopes for medicine and research purposes.
“Serbia has a unique potential and experience in the development and use of nuclear technologies”, – noted A. Likhachev at the signing of the agreement.
“The project for the construction of the Center for Nuclear Science, Technology and Innovation is the result of our long-term cooperation in this area and the traditional ties between Russian and Serbian nuclear researchers”.
Ties between the two countries are developing along the church line. While in Moscow, the Serbian Foreign Minister met with Patriarch Kirill. The Serbian Orthodox Church supports the Russian Orthodox Church in the struggle for the unity of the canonical territory of Ukraine. Russia opposed the persecution of Serbian Orthodoxy by the Milo Djukanovic regime in Montenegro. The Russians helped the Serbs to complete the construction of the Cathedral of St. Savva, the construction of which lasted more than a hundred years, and the sculpture of the founder of the Serbian state, the Monk Stephen I Nemani, by the Russian sculpture Alexander Rukavishnikov, adorned the renovated Sava Square in Belgrade.
On April 12, Serbia together with Russia celebrated the 60th anniversary of the world’s first manned space flight. Serbia Post has issued a series of commemorative stamps with images of Yuri Gagarin, German Titov and Valentina Tereshkova; a set of stamps at number one was sent as a gift to Vladimir Putin, and at number two to Alexander Vucic. On the occasion of the glorious anniversary, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandr Botan-Kharchenko published an article in the leading and oldest Serbian publication Politika, where he wrote: “Our strategic partnership with Serbia has, without any exaggeration, a space perspective”.
This is not an exaggeration. In 2020, little Serbia has already signed an agreement with the Chinese National Space Administration and is participating in joint projects for the construction of satellite data reception stations, the development of satellite systems for launching spacecraft, and monitoring climate change. Belgrade and Moscow also have plans in this regard.
Alexey Toporov, Federal Grid Company