Why did Zelensky come to Vučić? Serbia has what Ukraine really needs

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The Ukrainian president's arrival in Belgrade marked the beginning of a visit of extremely high geopolitical sensitivity. Given the high stakes involved, the meeting between the Ukrainian and Serbian presidents was carefully choreographed. Both presidents face serious challenges in their own ways, and saw this meeting as an opportunity to secure much-needed political and strategic support.

The protocol itself was planned in great detail, in order to minimize the damage to the domestic public and to present this meeting as "strictly business." The Ukrainian president was not greeted at the airport by the Serbian president or foreign minister, as is customary, but by the minister of energy and mining.

This gave the meeting an economic and energy dimension at the start, while reducing the military-political dimension. Only the next day was a ceremonial welcome held in front of the Palace of Serbia with a red carpet, a military guard, and the singing of national anthems.

Balancing

The meeting was full of tension. Serbia has been followed in international circles for years by voices of sympathy for Moscow. Serbia is the only one in Europe, along with Belarus, that has not imposed sanctions on Russia, although President Vučić condemned the invasion itself. It is precisely because of such an "inconclusive" stance and the social atmosphere within Serbia that there was a strong current in Ukraine that resisted the visit to Belgrade.

Ultimately, this meeting has been postponed several times, although signs of cooperation have been seen before - from the visit of the First Lady of Ukraine to Belgrade, to the frequent meetings of the two presidents at international summits. One such was the summit in Dubrovnik in October 2024.

This move by Serbia is interpreted as a display of maximum cooperation towards the European Union, which has shown through the example of Viktor Orban that it does not want countries within Europe that will serve the Kremlin to create cracks in European unity. Additionally, the internal political situation in some way forces the Serbian president to demonstrate cooperation towards Brussels.

How complex this all is can be seen from the media coverage. The media, which is considered to be sympathetic to the Serbian president, in order to reduce the dissatisfaction of the electorate, presented this meeting as an event of exclusively strategic nature.

Military industry

It is no secret that Serbia's military industry is of great importance to Ukraine, having grown into a key indirect partner through intermediary countries and with direct support from the US. Serbia has thus delivered ammunition worth almost a billion euros to Ukraine via surrounding routes.

The Serbian military industry is undoubtedly the largest, most developed and most complete in the region, and even plays a significant role on a global scale. This role is a legacy of the SRFJ military industry, but in recent years it has experienced strong modernization and export expansion.

As part of this, a more ambitious project - the construction of a joint drone factory - has been discussed for months. The construction of a joint drone factory in a format in which Ukraine provides technological know-how, Serbia labor and production capacities is logical from an industrial and economic point of view, however, from a security and geopolitical point of view, there are many obstacles.

This is where Israel's role is interesting. President Vučić's statement calling on the Ukrainian president to open a drone factory, which Serbia is building in cooperation with Israel, is no coincidence. Cooperation between Belgrade and Tel Aviv has been going on for years and is very developed. Ukraine could help here, avoiding direct participation, through private companies or consulting agencies, transferring daily war experience with the aim of improving products.

To avoid accusations that Serbia is directly building Ukrainian military drones, Serbia, in cooperation with Israel, can officially produce only specific assemblies (housings, optics), after which Ukraine would install its own software, warheads, and communication modules.

Energy Industry

However, both presidents explicitly emphasized that military cooperation was not the topic of the discussion. Of course, these statements are interpreted as a certain kind of cushioning of tensions, although it is clear that Serbia exports large quantities of ammunition that end up in Ukraine. Because of all this, the main focus of this visit was energy architecture. Returning to the beginning of the text, it is indicative that the Ukrainian president was welcomed by the Minister of Mining and Energy.

For years, Serbia used gas that came from Russia via Hungary and Ukraine, and since 2021 via the Balkan Stream through Bulgaria. Although the infrastructure was new, there was a heavy dependence on a single supplier - Gazprom. In order to maintain good relations with Russia, Serbia had favorable multi-year contracts with the Russian company, but this stopped after the outbreak of the war. The supply was switched to short-term contracts that were extended every few months, which Moscow did purposefully to maintain political influence over Belgrade.

Serbia is currently trying to join the Vertical Gas Corridor and secure sufficient gas through new interconnectors with Bulgaria, Romania and North Macedonia. This would allow Serbia to displace the Russian gas monopoly and integrate Serbia into the European Union's energy system in the long term. This network also includes Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Ukraine's role in all of this is that Ukraine has the largest underground gas storage facilities in all of Europe, located in the very west of the country, along the border with the EU. When European countries buy liquefied gas from the US or Qatar, that gas arrives in large quantities in the summer when it is cheaper.

Since Serbia has too few storage facilities (and some are held by the Russians), the European energy plan foresees that surpluses will be sent to Ukrainian storage facilities. Ukraine alone has a gas storage capacity of almost a third of the entire EU. In general, it is impossible to imagine a new energy architecture of Europe without Ukraine, and, regardless of the importance of all other issues, this is a key reason for the Ukrainian president's visit to Serbia.

Messages

During their joint public address, the two leaders sent clear messages. President Vučić unequivocally emphasized that Serbia supports the UN Charter and the territorial integrity of all member states, including Ukraine. In turn, President Zelensky reaffirmed Ukraine's unwavering position on non-recognition of Kosovo, a key political point for the Serbian public.

Both sides also provided mutual support on the path towards European integration. In addition, President Zelensky addressed the broader context of global aid to Ukraine, emphasizing the complex bureaucracy, while President Vučić reiterated his less-than-optimistic prediction of the end of the war.

In the end, both leaders achieved certain goals with this visit. The Serbian president continues his complex balancing act, where he seeks to maintain Russia's political and energy trump cards for as long as possible, while at the same time demonstrating his cooperativeness to Europe.

President Zelensky likely secured the continuation of ammunition deliveries, although he did not publicly state this, deepened economic ties, and once again received confirmation of support for his own sovereignty from a state that continues to maintain contact with Moscow.