Calling Volodymyr Zelensky "the leader of the Kiev regime," Russian-language media are sparsely reporting that the Ukrainian president will make his first official visit to Belgrade on Saturday (August 8).
While some, like TASS, briefly say that the visit was announced by the office of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, others, like Svobodnaya Pressa, place emphasis on the news from the French AFP, which was reported by an unnamed Ukrainian official.
The official stressed the importance of this visit, considering that Serbia traditionally maintains close relations with Russia.
"We need to pull Serbs away from Russia," the agency's interlocutor said, calling Zelensky's visit to Belgrade "a slap in the face to the Russians."
The Guardian also reported that statement.
However, there has been no extensive reaction to the announced visit in the Russian media, whether they are waiting for the visit to end and commenting on its results, or seeing it solely as a diplomatic move by both presidents.
Vučić on Zelensky's visit
Aleksandar Vučić recalled yesterday that he had had five or six meetings with Zelensky so far.
"We have several important topics. One is the European path of Ukraine and Serbia, since we are in a similar situation and are facing the same or similar problems on our European path. I believe that we will discuss how and in what way to help each other on this issue and, if possible, to learn some things from each other," Vučić said, RTS reports.
As he said, the second issue is bilateral economic cooperation, and the third is energy cooperation between Serbia and Ukraine.
Vučić recalled that "Ukraine has not recognized an independent Kosovo," that it has twice organized the Southeast Europe - Ukraine summits on its territory, and that it has never invited representatives of Pristina.
"These are things we must respect," the president pointed out.
When asked whether Zelensky's visit means that Serbia will join sanctions against Russia, Vučić denied it.
"Regarding sanctions, let me answer you directly: Serbia has established its own policy. Volodymyr Zelensky, I am sure that, in accordance with his struggle and his views, he will say what he thinks about sanctions against the Russian Federation, but the Republic of Serbia expressed its views four and a half years ago, almost five years ago, which it has not changed in the previous period and will remain so until further notice," said President Vučić.
Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, and even (why not) Croatia - who is a bigger friend to whom?
While Vučić reminded that Kiev did not recognize Kosovo's independence, Russia Today Balkan, a Russian media outlet in Serbian, was quick to present Russia as a greater friend to Belgrade.
They recalled that last August 5, Zelensky "congratulated Croatia on Victory and Homeland Gratitude Day and Croatian Defenders' Day," saying that Ukrainians, "more than anyone else, understand the importance of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and peace."
"Zelensky then forgot to remind Croatia of the 220.000 expelled Krajina Serbs, as well as the 1.904 killed and missing Serbs, while congratulating them. On the other hand, Russia does not miss a single August 4th, when Serbia marks the anniversary of the suffering in 'Storm', to point out that 'the Croatian armed forces carried out 'Storm' with the support of the West in August 1995 and that it is one of the most tragic pages in the recent history of the Balkans,'" RT Balkan reports.
Ukraine's support, unlike Russia's, was also absent in the days when Serbia fought at the UN against labeling Serbs as a "genocidal people", RT Balkan further states, adding that Ukraine voted "for", while Russia was against.
Let us recall that the existence of the aforementioned formulation "Serbs as a genocidal people" has been repeatedly disputed by both Serbian and Western political scientists, who emphasized that this was not the meaning of the resolution and that no people had ever been labeled as "genocidal", not even the Germans.
As if diplomatic relations between Croatia and Ukraine somehow "endanger" Belgrade, RT continued to remind us of them.
Ukraine recalls close relations between Serbia and Russia
Ukrainian media, such as Ukrainian Justice, remind that Serbia is considered one of the most Russia-friendly countries in Europe, that it has not imposed sanctions and maintains close energy ties with Moscow.
In May 2025 (to mark Victory Day), Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the text recalls.
Incidentally, Vučić met with Putin in September last year in Beijing, while this year he was not at the celebration of Victory Day over Fascism in Moscow.
Ukrainian media remind that Brussels has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with Serbia's continued close relationship with Russia.
In July, Vučić visited Kiev to participate in the Southeast Europe-Ukraine summit. At the time, he stated that he was not entirely satisfied with the amount of aid Serbia had provided to Ukraine.
At the same time, the Serbian president did not join the summit's joint declaration, which envisaged further political, military and financial support for Ukraine, as well as security assistance and increased pressure on Russia.
Previously, Ukrainian officials also visited Serbia, including the then Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Taras Kachka and the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk.
Christopher Hill: The leadership in Belgrade clearly does not have the impression that Putin's forces are on the verge of a decisive victory in Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Serbia may be an announcement of a joint drone factory, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and is reported by Deutsche Welle.
The visit is considered to be "primarily a political signal," although officially it will mostly focus on economic topics.
Journalist Michael Martens spoke for this article with Christopher Hill, former US ambassador to Serbia, who told him that Ukraine has long been interested in weapons production in Serbia, and that he himself played a significant role in establishing contacts between Kiev and Belgrade.
The German daily writes that the visit was uncertain for a long time, due to the development of war events in Ukraine, but also because "there is a group in Kiev that is resolutely lobbying against Zelensky's visit to Serbia, a Russophile state in the Balkans."
Even if the central topic of the conversation is military cooperation, defense cooperation is by no means neglected in this cooperation, which includes the potential joint production of drones, with trilateral cooperation between Ukraine, Serbia as the production site, and the United Arab Emirates as the financier, writes FAZ.
"The fact that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's greatest enemy, Zelensky, is now arriving on an official visit to Serbia also allows for certain conclusions about Serbian expectations of the future course of Russian aggression against Ukraine. The leadership in Belgrade obviously does not have the impression that Putin's forces are facing a decisive victory in Ukraine in the short term. Accordingly, relations with Ukraine are developing, but without severing ties with Russia," writes FAZ.
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