Nurturing relations between Serbia and Ukraine is now more important than ever

The BCSP director, Mr. Igor Bandović, opened the panel discussion by saying this is a critical moment to discuss the perspectives of the war in Ukraine, an opportunity that we don’t have often enough in Belgrade. “We will continue to be the Serbian hub for Euro-Asia researchers that we will host in Belgrade in the upcoming period.“

During the event, Kateryna Shymkevych, a visiting fellow at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) and a lecturer at the Zaporizhzhia Institute of Economics and Informational Technologies, presented her policy paper “A Forgotten Friendship: Serbo-Ukrainian Relations and Pro-Russian Narratives.” She pointed out that relations between Ukraine and Serbia are complex, especially since Russian aggression against Ukraine began. The relations depend on Russian propaganda and disinformation, so experts and researchers are crucial in changing the public’s opinion so that the Serbian people can understand Ukrainians and vice versa.

“Most Serbian media is spreading disinformation about what is happening in Ukraine, but unfortunately, the Serbian population believes in it. The systematic fight against Russian narratives shared through Serbian media is much needed but hardly possible because the government controls the media.” She said that Serbian leadership does not see the use of breaking ties with Russia for several reasons, including energy dependency on Russia, seeing Putin as a world leader, and the belief that Russia will defend Serbia’s interest regarding Kosovo.

“Ukraine supports Serbia’s territorial integrity, but it is important to highlight that Crimea and Kosovo are not in the same situation. For Serbia, Kosovo is an issue that makes the EU integration process difficult, but for Ukraine, Crimea is not that issue.” – Kateryna Shymkevich concluded.

 

 

Regarding Serbia’s foreign policy in the war, Vuk Vuksanović, a senior researcher at the BCSP, pointed out that Serbian strategy is based on balancing between Russia and the West while letting the two sides play against each other. “It is clear that the Serbian-Russian relations are not terminated but restrained. The critical part is Russian popularity among the Serbian population, which manifests Serbian dissatisfaction with Western politics.“ While discussing Serbian-Ukrainian relations, Vuksanović underlined some of the positive sides of the relations, like the Ukrainian backing of Serbia in 1999 or the fact that most of the Serbian population believes that Ukrainian refugees are as welcome as Russian ones.

“The longer this war continues, preserving European unity will be more challenging. This is something Ukraine is worried about. For Serbian foreign policy, if there is a strong force of unity among European states, this will go on hand for the current Serbian government because it will avoid making tough choices.“ Vuksanović commented.

 

 

The third panelist was Mykhailo Samus, Deputy Director for Foreign Affairs at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies in Ukraine, and the New Geopolitics Research Network Director. On Serbo-Ukrainian relations, he said that the developments at the battlefield had impacted relations between Ukraine and Serbia and that it surprised the Serbian public that Ukraine started to fight back. “It was clear that Russia was trying to cause a human catastrophe, destroy the Ukrainian economy and create an energy crisis in Europe by restricting the gas supply. But this didn’t work. I believe that now is the time to model our relations and that Ukraine and Serbia can be close partners, especially from the economic point of view.” In the end, Samus said the European Union had problems before the war, but after this period, he expects it to be more resilient and stable than before the Russian aggression.

Igor Fedyk, the Head of the Balkan section of the Center for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies, Igor Fedyk pointed out how bad is strategic autonomy of the European Union is. “Without real leadership, strong armed forces, and defence industry, the autonomous EU has no chance against Russia. European security architecture should be based on enhanced Euro-Atlantic unity, and Ukraine should be part of it.
He agreed with the rest of the panelists on how difficult it is to counteract the perception of Ukraine in Serbian society when pro-government media is spreading Russian propaganda. However, he underlined the possibility of rapprochement between Ukraine and Serbia after the end of the war, especially in terms of Serbian military cooperation with Ukraine instead of Russia.

At the end of the discussion, the speakers concluded that although preserving European unity as the war continues will be challenging, the EU will become more resilient, effective, and stable than before the Russian aggression.