‘There Can Be No Double Standards’ – Serbian President Will Attend Putin’s Victory Day Parade After All

While on a state visit to Washington, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said on Thursday he will not back out of plans to visit Moscow on Victory Day, as he had given his word to Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin that he would be there.

“My word matters. I’ve never lied to anyone. No one else has to go, no one else has to suffer. I will go – unless something happens or some threat is directed at Serbia. But my mind is not so easily changed,” Vučić said.

When asked last month if he planned to participate in the May 9 ceremony in Moscow commemorating the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 (with which Putin has made head-scratching parallels to his own full-scale, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which has a Jewish president), Vučić said he might not be able to as he was slated to visit the US capital on those dates.

Serbia has walked a diplomatic tightrope over the past few years, trying to balance its historical ties with Moscow, and on the other hand trying to make a good impression on the West as his country vies for European Union membership.

For example, despite his self-admittedly good relations with Putin, Vučić was cautious about the optics of his country’s representation at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russian Federation, last year. He declined the invitation to be a visible part of Putin’s circle of allies and appeasers, and instead, at the eleventh hour, sent Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin in his place.

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The Serbian president said that his current visit to the US, as well as visits by European officials to Belgrade, are important for Serbia. But on the other hand, he has complained about EU pressure to cancel his trip to Moscow.

“Numerous European guests will be coming to speak to me about the trip to Moscow, but they haven’t convinced me yet that I shouldn’t go. That’s hard to do with people as hard-headed as we are,” Vučić said.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Serbian president repeated that Kosovo belongs to Serbia, even after the war between Belgrade and ethnic Albanians there to gain their independence from the former Yugolslav capital.

Vučić said that there can be “no double standards” and the UN Charter must be applied not only to Ukraine but also to Serbia.

In a conversation with Donald Trump’s associate Rudy Giuliani (who attempted to strong-arm Kyiv into turning over compromising information on Trump’s political rivals), Vučić told him:

“You cannot have a double-edged sword, say that you are in favor of respecting public international law and the UN Charter, and then bomb Serbia, occupy 13 or 14 percent of Serbia’s territory. And when something similar happens in Ukraine, then it is a crime.”