Serbia has agreed to supply arms to Ukraine and may have already started deliveries. This is stated in classified US Department of Defense documents that entered the network, informed Reuters.
Journalists found in the “leaked” documents a document summarizing the position of European countries on the issue of military assistance to Ukraine. It is called “Europe| Response to the Ongoing Russian-Ukrainian Conflict,” dated March 2, marked “Secret” and stamped by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is forbidden to transfer the information it contains to foreign intelligence services.
The document, in the form of an infographic, lists the “estimated positions” of 38 European governments in response to requests for military assistance from Ukraine. Countries are divided into several categories:
countries that have pledged to provide Ukraine with “lethal assistance” or train its soldiers; countries that are already doing so; countries that have the military capacity and the political will to provide military assistance in the future.
It appears from the document that Serbia refused to train Ukrainian soldiers, but undertook to supply arms to Kiev or has already supplied them. Belgrade also has the political will and the ability to supply Ukraine with weapons in the future.
Austria and Malta do not belong to any of the categories listed.
Reuters notes that it cannot verify the authenticity of the leaked document. The Pentagon, representatives of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Ukrainian Embassy did not respond to requests from journalists.
“If this document is credible, it either shows Vučić’s duplicity towards Russia or that Washington is putting enormous pressure on him to deliver weapons to Ukraine,” Europe expert Janusz Bugajski said. of the East at the Jamestown Foundation.
Serbia’s position
Information about the possible supply of Serbian weapons to Ukraine does not appear for the first time. At the end of February, the Mash Telegram channel published images from a warehouse in Bratislava, which allegedly showed 3.5 thousand 122 mm M-21 rockets produced by the Serbian company Krušik. According to the publication, the missiles were made by order of the Canadian company JNJ Export Import for use by Turkey. However, they were sent from Turkey to Slovakia, and then to Ukraine.
Vučić called reports that Serbia was selling weapons to Kiev a blatant lie. He said Belgrade had not sold “a single piece of arms, tools or ammunition to either Ukraine or Russia”.
Serbia did not adhere to the sanctions that Europe imposed on Russia in the framework of the military operation in Ukraine. Vučić said last May that Belgrade was paying a huge price for its position.
“We tolerate a lot without imposing sanctions on the Russian Federation, but we do it because we are an independent country,” he said.
At the same time, Vucic stressed that Serbia from the very beginning did not support the Russian military operation in Ukraine. “For us, Crimea is Ukraine, Donbass is Ukraine, and it will remain so,” he said.
On Wednesday, Serbian Defense Minister Alexander Vulin denied reports of arms deliveries to Ukraine.
“More than 10 times we have refuted this lie, we will do it again. Serbia has not and will not sell weapons either to the Ukrainian side or to the Russian side, as well as to the states located near the conflict zone,” said Vulin.
The leak of secret US documents became known in early April. At the same time, according to US media, the documents first appeared in early March on the Discord chat platform. The documents, in particular, outline US and NATO plans to bolster the Ukrainian military ahead of its counteroffensive. The Pentagon and the US Department of Justice are investigating the “leak”. How secret documents could get on the web and how a “leak” can affect the course of the conflict – read in the The Eastern Herald material.
Read the latest news about the Ukraine conflict on The Eastern Herald .
