B92
May 7, 2022

Vučić: “After Putin’s statement, our situation has changed for the worse”

“In the past decade, we have faced many crises, a catastrophic financial crisis, we have also faced the worst floods, the migrant crisis and a million people have passed through the country, we have faced coronavirus pandemic, and in our time we are witnessing a world conflict, you can also call it the third world war”, the president said.

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Vučić stated that the latest research showed that for the first time we have a clear majority of citizens who are against joining the EU – 44 percent, while 35 percent support EU accession.

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“Namely, our situation has changed for the worse, after the statements of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Not because he intended to harm Serbia, but because he raised the issue of Kosovo and Metohija in a different way, to protect Russian interests,” Vucic said.

Vučić read Putin’s statement and tried to explain what Putin meant when he told UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that a precedent had been set by the International Court of Justice when it ruled on Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence and that parts of Ukraine bordering Russia could declare independence. He said that Western officials are now trying to ruin Putin’s argument by saying that Kosovo and the Donbas region are different cases.

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Tanjug News Agency
May 7, 2022

Vucic: Serbia under great pressure due to Russian interests in Ukraine

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said late on Friday almost no one from Western countries talked about normalisation of Belgrade-Pristina relations, but exclusively about a mutual recognition, in order to deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of arguments regarding Russia’s recognition of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic.

“Out of a desire to protect Russian interests, Putin found a political and legal foundation for an incursion into Ukraine, using a precedent set by Western countries in Serbian territory following a ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague that said the declaration of independence of Kosovo is not contrary to international law,” Vucic said in a public address.

“Putin will tell the West that he has carried out an action in Ukraine to prevent genocide or a humanitarian disaster, and that, as opposed to Kosovo, there has been a referendum in the Crimea. Since they understand that this argumentation is not weak…that is where we come to our biggest problem, because the entire West will request that Serbia move quickly towards recognising Kosovo so that they can tell Russia it is not an identical case and so that there is no legal precedent,” Vucic said.

That does not mean Russia will recognise Kosovo, Vucic said.

“It will not, but Serbia will be under great pressure to recognise Kosovo so that Putin cannot use Kosovo as an argument for what is going on in Ukraine,” he said.

“That is why we will now be under the biggest pressure,” Vucic warned.

He said nearly all Western leaders he had spoken with over the past month had exclusively requested a mutual recognition with Pristina.