West gains advantage as it vies with Russia for influence in Serbia

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago, pro-Moscow sentiment has spilled into Serbia's streets. T-shirts with the letter Z, a symbol of Russia's campaign, are sold as souvenirs while far-right groups openly tout support for Russia.

President Aleksandar Vucic, trying to pull off a tricky balancing act between Serbia's deep cultural and religious ties with Russia on the one hand and European Union ambitions and a NATO partnership on the other, has done little to counter the agitation out of fear of losing popular support.

But beyond the pro-Russian noise, the West is making low-key strides toward expanding trade ties with Serbia, reducing its reliance on Russian energy and defusing tensions with Kosovo, its former, mainly ethnic Albanian southern province.

For more than two decades, the Kremlin has been Serbia's big power ally in opposing first Kosovo's 1998-99 popular uprising and then its 2008 independence. Ending the tense Serbia-Kosovo standoff, a condition of both states' potential EU membership, would remove much of Moscow's leverage over Belgrade.

"Russia's overall actions and aim in relations with Serbia are to keep it out of NATO and the EU," said Maxim Samorukov, a fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Loath to alienate the EU, Belgrade has condemned Russia's invasion at the United Nations and other international forums, recognized Ukraine's pre-war borders, sent humanitarian and infrastructural aid to Kyiv, and welcomed refugees from the conflict, both Ukrainians and Russians.

However, Belgrade's failure to join Western sanctions against Moscow has drawn criticism. Last month, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said that while Serbia had made progress in EU accession negotiations, Brussels required more.

"It seems ... that the level of alignment with common foreign and defense policies of the European Union, hence the introduction of sanctions on the Russian Federation, is a condition above all conditions," she told reporters.

Nearly 80% of Serbs oppose sanctions against Russia, a 2022 poll by Belgrade-based Demostat found, mainly because of the sanctions and isolation imposed in the 1990s on Belgrade over its role in the wars over federal Yugoslavia's break-up.

A separate CRTA poll found 61% felt Belgrade should preserve good relations with Moscow even at the cost of EU ties. Another, government-sponsored poll showed 43% of Serbs would vote for EU membership and 32% against it.

Given such divided public opinion, Vucic's strategy is to avoid insulting Moscow and reaffirm good relations "while taking gradual steps to detach Serbia from Russia in various aspects from the economy to security cooperation," Samorukov said.

REUTERS