Starovic: There is no evidence that Serbia exported weapons to Ukraine

The State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense, Nemanja Starovic, today denied allegations that Serbia exported weapons to the two warring parties, Ukraine and the Russian Federation, RTV reports.

Starovic, in the show "Pravi Ugao" on RTV, said that weapons and military equipment were not exported to the countries surrounding Ukraine, or to countries where there was suspicion that they could be re-exported.

"Serbia, we all know that, is an exporter of weapons and military equipment, but this is done with an end-user certificate, with which the buyer undertakes not to export to third countries, but will have to seek Serbia's consent if he would eventually like to re-export weapons. I cannot claim that some bullet or grenade, which was produced in the SFRY or Serbia, was not found in Ukraine. If there is a conflict that is thoroughly covered by the media, and that is the war in Ukraine, everyone can make sure that there is no significant representation of anything that was produced in Serbia," Starovic said.

Speaking about reports in the media that accuse Serbia of exporting weapons to Ukraine, Starovic reminded that false news had been recently published that mass recruitment for the "Wagner" Group had been taking place in Serbia.

"Serbia is a very credible arms exporter. We have objective indicators. In terms of transparency in reporting, Serbia has been ranked high for several years, among the top three countries in the world, on the Transparency Barometer list, which is prepared and published by the organization 'Small Arms Survey', headquartered in Geneva. We are far ahead of the US, Russia, China, or France. We do not have the luxury of selectively applying valid laws," Starovic explains.

Speaking about the leak of very sensitive documents of the US government regarding the war in Ukraine and US allies, Starovic says that it is not known whether these documents are authentic.

"All we know is that it is some kind of table with 38 European countries, where some countries are listed as those that have already exported weapons to Ukraine, and some that are ready to do so. It is just some assessment by analysts, there is no evidence that Serbia undertook that kind of commitment. We have not supplied, nor do we intend to supply, warring parties. We have provided humanitarian aid for the people of Ukraine, we have sent ambulances, we have sent electricity generators. We also have a clear value position that is reflected in our vote in the UN. We don't want to be a party to this war," Starovic pointed out.

He explained that information had appeared in the media about members of a group on the online social platform Discord who had told The Washington Post that hundreds of pages of material had been posted there by a very young man who had said he had been working in the US military and had taken the documents home with him, so he first had typed them from memory and then had photographed and published them.

"I would be very careful, because we are in the middle of a whirlwind of war, and the history of warfare teaches us that we have war tricks. A lot of energy is invested in deceiving the other side, so documents are released. It's like when a soccer player takes a penalty, then he tells the goalkeeper that he will shoot in the lower left corner. The goalkeeper knows that this is probably not true, but a seed of doubt has been sown," Starovic said.

He reminded that the data leak had occurred a week ago, that the main news had been the documents that had been the alleged war plans of the Ukrainian side, and that only later had come the documents about the alleged allies of Ukraine.

"When the details started, it was noticed in Reuters in London that Serbia had been marked as a country that supplied Ukraine. Even if all this is true, why does Reuters publish the news with such a headline, even though they are aware of the fact that it is only one table, without any evidence? It can only be a form of pressure on Serbia," he pointed out.

Starovic underlined that Serbia was a militarily neutral country, but it was not neutral in the political sense, but had a clear value relationship towards the war in Ukraine and defended territorial integrity in Ukraine, as well as in its own case.