SERBIA-RUSSIA | A Special Relationship?

This is another topic I have wanted to explore for a while. Having worked on the Balkans for many years and having spent a lot of time in Serbia, I have always been fascinated by the relationship between Russia and Serbia. It is much more interesting and complex than most outsiders think it is. But I do get the sense that the Ukraine War has changed something. So, is Serbia moving closer to Moscow? And is there a split between the public and the government, as seems to be the case. Or is the Government just leading the EU on and is much more pro-Russian than it presents itself. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts and comments. (And please keep it civil. Even if you disagree, we can still discuss it politely.) I’d be particularly keen to hear from any Serbs. What do you think? Have things changed in Serbia, and how?

They can be friends with whoever they want.

I’m under the assumption that Serbia is always going to be taken for granted by the EU/West so it will always look for meaningful relationships with China and Russia, who will likewise pull them away from the West. In turn, it creates a trifecta with the EU reconsidering its stances to prevent Serbia from completely ignoring or divorcing themselves from the EU. People say that the EU is its greatest and most realistic long term partner but so far it looks like it’s broadly held in contempt and the EU only engages with Serbia to prevent complete Russian/Chinese influence. I also think there’s unrealistic expectations of Serbia from the West for it to liberalize/democratize if we include progress done thus far. As of current, Vucic’s government is more pragmatic than Hungary; which is a EU member. And given this is the Balkans, where every ruling party in the government dabbles in monopolizing their party’s power one way or another- I would say it isn’t much different from Croatia, Greece, etc. This is a trend that has to be tackled over the course of decades and only holding Serbia accountable to this when there’s at least five other perpetrators is disingenuous, but it’s probably because Serbia isn’t in the EU and you can’t audit member nations once they’re in. If the west was willing to engage with Serbia on equal standing, then Serbia would probably be more cooperative. It’s been 16 years since 2008, and now the average Serb is much more skeptical about EU ascension, or achieving it without any major EU concessions. I think the current status quo with the trifecta will remain until the EU changes its approach. To me it’s clear Serbia has no other alternative in the long term and has to join the EU; but that’s not going to happen if they give up an arm and leg for nothing in return.

Russia is the only country that is committed to upholding the Dayton Agreement which protects minority rights within Bosnia Herzegovina. And Russia supports the territorial integrity of Serbia with regards to Kosovo. Yes it's a hypocritical position but that's against the US who's hypocrisy is 100x worse. But all of that is beside the point, I'd say China has a special relationship in the 21st century as their initiatives within Serbia has revived much of the economy that was destroyed by NATO and the dissolution of Yugoslavia

The Serbian people love Russians as their own. The Serbian state, is occupied by the USA and administered by Christopher Hill, if not on paper, in reality. This is a temporary thing, as is the USA.

Serbia is in a tough place, surrounded by the EU and NATO, they need to bid their time, and hope for a change in the weather. It's interesting how between Slovakia, Serbia, and Hungry, there is, if not exactly a pro Russian block, there is pro neutral grouping, in Austria and Croatia there are a lot of, again pro neutral voters. This correspondence to the old Habsburg lands is probably not an accident. When taken together with the very real sympathies of the old Prussian state in eastern Europe in the AFD for Russia, perhaps the old alliance of the 3 empires is not totally forgotten in the modern era.

I saw a few minor mistakes when talking about the history in ww2 area but thats not that important, the important part that i noticed that you didnt show is when you pulled up the poll in the video, yes 70% percent would rather more likely live in EU than in Russia but there is another part of the poll that asked "would you want to live in EU/Be part of European Union if you had to recognise "Kosovo" as a sovereign state" and the result was around 10-13% for joining, also the polls showed that a big number of people wouldnt want to join NATO (as stated, they bombed us), and that comes hand in hand with joining European Union. Even though people living in Serbia know they will never be let in the European Union, because the candidate process started in 2009 and every year the European Union just adds more and more requests even tho we fullfil most of them in time (per say).

I love all your videos. I particularly like the format starting with a brief introduction of the history . As a South African I can understand public opinion in Serbia . The so-called West has to try and understand that it’s enemies are not necessarily ours . We would like to do what is best for us and that is having good relationships with all countries . We also consider justification for certain actions by the West not to be consistent and also hypocritical.

I honestly think that to an extent, Serbia is only pragmatic with its relations to Russia because it's outside the EU; Hungary is in and can't really be kicked out, so it can be as pro-Putin as it wants with relatively little consequence. The Serbian government hasn't done itself any favours, especially recently, but I do think EU accession being stalled has in part driven them more towards Russia than the West. I do wonder if Serbs even want to join the EU anymore. I think there was polling recently that showed only 40% of Serbs supported joining the EU. I understand why Serbs think the West is hypocritical for bombing them during the Kosovo war while today also supporting Ukraine, but I also think it's a bit more complicated than them having double standards, i.e., lots of war crimes on both sides of the conflict in Kosovo. Maybe it's too subjective, but you could probably do an entire video on whether NATO was justified or not in its intervention in Kosovo.

Ok so. There are several layers of relationship between the two countries. The primary one is political and thats Kosovo (JKL is correct here). Serbia needs Russia because legally speaking (despite what Americans would like to claim) the Kosovo issue is still in the UN and UN resolution 1244 is still active and binding (and it states that Kosovo is a part of Serbia). Kosovo will not join the UN until this resolution is abolished. And thus Russia has the ability to both veto any American/British attempt to strong arm / force Kosovo into UN (like they do in many other international bodies) but also to prevent the Americans and British from abolishing the resolution 1244 which they would love to do. Second to all of that, is the economic angle. Unlike what you claimed, nobody here thinks that Russian investment is nonprofitable or harmful, its quite the opposite. Its just not comparable to the Western investment, both in quality and quantity. Serbia had a political deal with Russia (just like Ukraine btw) where it could export industrial goods produced in Serbia onto Russian market without paying tariffs. This has led to many Western (European) companies investing in production capacity in Serbia (including heavy industry, like car production) in order to avoid paying export taxes for the Russian market - thus being more competitive and more profitable not only in Russia but in the entire Russian economic zone (a market of about 200 million people). And in exchange for that, Serbia had sold its national oil and gas distrubution, probably below market value, to the Russians. For which we get (or used to get) gas cheaper than market value. Gas which is required for (heavy) industry. In order to cut their operating costs. And maximize profits. Leading to MORE West (European) investments. For profits. So now that we know the context of things here, the West isnt investing in Serbia because they love us. They do it (and used to do it before) because its profitable. Russia isnt investing in industry here because it has no interest to do so. Serbia is a small country that is not a member of the EU zone and it doesnt have any special political access to the EU economic zone either. ------------- Completely unrelated to all of this we have 2 more issues: Serbia-Russia relations in the UN. Serbia's position in the UN is that its illegal to unilaterally change the borders of country against the will of said country. So invading Serbia and setting up Kosovo as a puppet vassal state which then unilaterally declares independence is very much against the UN charter. Well, invading Ukraine, which is a sovereign country, and annexing its regions, against the will of Ukraine, is basically the same exact thing (minus the step of setting up the puppet vassal state) as what has happened in Kosovo. So Serbia cannot clap in the UN and say "well done Russia". Russians know this. And they are not stupid. They know Serbia must vote on resolutions that condemn invasion and call for ceasefire. They dont care. Half of the global south countries did the same. Serbia-Russia relations vis a vis EU. Serbia is a candidate for the EU membership as we all know. But also as we all know Serbia will never become a member, sort of like Turkey. Because, as we all know, the West will blackmail Serbia over membership with recognition of Kosovo, which Serbia will never accept. And all parties know this. Serbia is however STILL a candidate because the candidate status gives you access to various cheap credits from the EU and various investment project funds. For example EU will pay for construction of roads that fit in EU development plans because even if Serbia is not a member, its still located in a central position and EU having efficient road transit (and river transit in the future) through Serbia is economically beneficial to the EU. So we play this game where EU demands we follow EU foreign policy as a candidate state and we play dumb and say "well were not a member state we dont have to follow your foreign policy, but here, we will vote for this UN resolution that calls for respecting Ukraine's internationally recognized borders". EU gets its virtue signalling moment. We get our virtue signalling moment. Money keeps flowing. Everyones happy. Serbia-Russia relations in context of arms sales to Ukraine. This is where your video has the most inaccuracies and downright purpuseful deceptions IMO. JKL you just cant help it you globalist you. Anyway. Things are very simple. Serbia has a big arms industry. Its a significant part of our GDP. With 10s of thousands of jobs and whatnot. We sell arms and ammo. But we dont sell it to Ukraine. Which Russians know. What happens is the arms and ammo we export to third countries - for example UAE or Bahrein - end up in Ukraine. So military goods that we have sold (in some cases years ago) to third countries are now being bought by Americans (and others) for higher price and then re-exported to Ukraine. There is nothing we can do about that. Nor is there anything we can do to stop it in the future. Unless we completely shut down our arms industies and not export any weapons and ammo at all. Which would be suicidal. Which is why Russians are not retarded to demand this from us. And here we go. Was that context so hard to explain JKL? Really?

Wow, where did you learn the pronunciation of names and cities? Almost perfect all of them, congratulations.

1:29 🇸🇰Slovakia, 🇭🇺Hungary, 🇹🇷Türkiye, 🇬🇪Georgia, 🇦🇲Armenia, 🇦🇿Azerbaijan & 🇧🇾Belarus left

Thank you for yet another well balanced and well researched presentation of international affairs.

A video about Serbia...you are really asking for it, Professor, aren't you ? 😂

Serbia tries to be friendly with every country. Greece and Russia are about the only countries that have not attacked Serbia and so it should not be a surprise that ordinary Serbs have a softer spot for those two European countries than they have for others. It would be nice if the neocons left Serbia alone and instead visited to enjoy its food, hospitality and history of giving the world a bunch of remarkable individuals who have benefited the whole world in science, the arts, as well as sport.

I enjoy watching each video, great work! 👍

Serbia and Russia have a bond !! For us Serbs Russia is our mother!!

Historically Serbias best friend is Romania, we fought longer time on the same side than Russia helped them and when we were in opposite sides we just ignored each other (ww2, Yugoslav civil war). Salutări din România!

Serbia is in very good relationship with Orban, Fico and Nehammer. Any question, on who's side Vucic is?

Good analysis Professor! As a Serb and follower of your work and channel (I referenced your work in my master’s thesis!), I find this video well balanced and insightful for many who do not understand the complex relationship between Serbia and Russia. Thanks!