The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, dismissed as false the claims of the newspaper "Nova". for deteriorating relations with Russia, reported the Serbian TV station RTS.
On the front page of the newspaper "Nova" claims, citing his sources, that relations between Belgrade and Moscow have deteriorated over Serbia's arms exports to Ukraine, and that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandar Grushko hastily left Serbia on a recent visit to Belgrade, and President Vucic called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin three times, who did not want to answer him. The article of "New" is titled "Grushko quickly left Serbia, Putin did not want to call Vucic”.
The Serbian president stated that everything written in the newspaper is a lie and that Serbia has very correct relations with Russia, reports Serbian RTS TV.
"Everything that is written is a simple lie. I want to inform the citizens that we have very correct relations with the Russian Federation", wrote Vucic on Instagram.
He also stated that so far there have been no situations in which one of the presidents did not want to respond to the invitation of the other. "Whenever President Putin expresses a desire to talk and see each other, my answer is positive. Whenever I have expressed a desire to speak with President Putin, his response has been positive," added Vucic.
Serbia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the entire article devoted to this topic, as well as the newspaper's main headline, constituted fake news and deliberate disinformation.
"Obviously, the intention of the authors and guarantors of this disinformation is, by spreading disinformation about the nature of relations between the Republic of Serbia and the Russian Federation, to cause political tension and division in our country, to cause political harm to the state leadership of our country at the head with President Vucic, but also to damage Serbia's reputation in the international community”, the message says.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia condemned this "flagrant example of irresponsible behavior in the public sphere". The ministry called on the authors and guarantors of this disinformation, as well as all public factors, to refrain from spreading false news, "which may have harmful consequences for state interests, at a difficult geopolitical moment for our country," RTS notes.
The Ukrinform agency reported last month, citing the Financial Times, that Serbia is increasing sales of ammunition to the West, which then end up in Ukraine through third countries. The amount of ammunition that Kyiv received from Belgrade is worth approximately 800 million euros, Ukrinform reported.