Vucic complained about the inability to buy cheap Russian oil due to sanctions

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban today, September 16, in Belgrade. During the meeting, they exchanged views on anti-Russian sanctions, on the future development of friendly relations between the two countries, and on the upcoming hard winter. Mr. Vučić also spoke about the difficult situation in the country and the problems that Serbia is facing: problems with territorial integrity, oil and gas supplies, pressure from the European Union.

“Victor (Orban,— “b”) managed to compete with the EU authorities in order to be able to receive Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Serbia, as a third country, has not been able to import Russian oil since November, which today is 20% cheaper than Kirkuk oil,” the Serbian edition quoted Mr. Vučić as saying. politics.

Russian oil enters Hungary through a separate line of the Druzhba oil pipeline, and Serbia will have a ban on oil imports from Russia from November 2022.

Mr. Orban, in turn, commenting on European sanctions, said that sanctions against Russia do not bring anything good to Europe and are costly for its citizens.

“We were taught that sanctions are imposed by the stronger against the weaker, but when I look at energy sanctions, I see that we, Europeans, are energy dwarfs, and we are imposing sanctions on the energy giant. This cannot lead to good,” Viktor Orban emphasized.

Mr. Vučić also stressed that Serbia has not joined any EU decision to impose anti-Russian sanctions.

After the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, Serbia became the only country among the EU members and candidates that did not join the anti-Russian sanctions. For this reason, the West put pressure on Belgrade in various ways, demanding sanctions against Russia.

Ekaterina Dyachenko