Ukraine receives ammunition from Serbia through third countries
The ammunition Serbia supplies to Western countries ends up in Ukraine. Ukrainian troops could have already received ammunition worth several hundred million euros, reports Financial Times.
According to the Financial Times, Ukrainian troops could have already received approximately 800 million euros worth of Serbian ammunition through third countries. According to the newspaper, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic himself agrees with this assessment, although he assures that Serbia is not a party to Russia's war against Ukraine.
"This is part of our economic revival and it is important for us. Yes, we export our ammunition. We can't export to Ukraine or Russia, but we had a lot of contracts with Americans, Spaniards, Czechs and other countries. What they eventually do with it is their business," Vucic said in an interview with the FT.
As the Serbian president emphasized, it is not his business that these munitions can get to Ukraine. What matters to him is that they are sold legally abroad.
During the Cold War, Serbia, which was then part of Yugoslavia, had a thriving arms industry and was a producer of Soviet-standard ammunition. The same kind of ammunition that is still used by the Ukrainian army. Today, according to Vucic, Serbia has a great opportunity, as its ammunition is cheaper than Western ammunition, and the scale of Serbian exports can grow.
Last year, when the leak of secret Pentagon documents revealed that Serbian ammunition could be supplied to Ukraine, Vucic denied it. Moreover, he assured that Serbian export contracts provided for a ban on re-exports to Ukraine.