According to political analyst Branka Latinović, NIS today functions as an instrument of competition between the interests of great powers across Serbian territory, which is, as she says, “the worst position a state can find itself in”.

The latest information published by Novosti [1], is that Russia would rather sell its share of NIS to a third partner, even an American one, rather than to Serbia. Latinović interprets this as Moscow’s possible response to the indirect sale of Serbian weapons to Ukraine – a shadow trade that has become one of the war’s worst-kept secrets.

Serbia’s claimed neutrality suffered a devastating blow in April 2023 when leaked Pentagon documents revealed that Belgrade had either agreed to supply lethal aid to Ukraine or had already done so. The document, entitled “Europe|Response to Ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict”, showed that whilst Serbia declined to provide training to Ukrainian forces, it had committed to sending lethal aid or had supplied it already.

The Serbian government vehemently denied the allegations. Defence Minister Miloš Vučević insisted: “Serbia did not, nor will it be selling weapons to the Ukrainian nor the Russian side, nor to countries surrounding that conflict.” However, these denials began to unravel as evidence mounted.

In June 2024, the Financial Times reported that around €800 million worth of Serbian ammunition had reached Ukraine via third parties over a two to three year period. When confronted with these figures, Vučić essentially admitted the trade whilst maintaining plausible deniability: “We cannot export to Ukraine or to Russia... but we have had many contracts with Americans, Spaniards, Czechs, others. What they do with that in the end is their job.”

He continued with remarkable frankness: “Even if I know [where the ammunition ends up], that’s not my job. My job is to secure the fact that we deal legally with our ammunition, that we sell it... I need to take care of my people, and that’s it.” When asked about the €800 million figure, Vučić confirmed it was “broadly accurate”.

The intermediary network is complex. Investigations by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) identified Serbian company SOFAG, owned by a daughter of Slobodan Tešić – a controversial Serbian arms dealer on the US sanctions list – as a key player. American company Global Ordnance, which supplies weapons to the US Department of Defence and its allies including Ukraine, was also involved in these transactions.

Russia’s response has been increasingly sharp. In May 2025, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused Belgrade of “a stab in the back”, alleging Serbia sends arms shipments to Ukraine through NATO intermediaries including the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria. The SVR claimed these sales have “one clear purpose – to kill and maim Russian military personnel and the civilian population.”

The EU’s Carrot and Stick Approach

Jelica Minić, Director of the European Policy Centre in Belgrade, notes that the NIS sanctions have pushed Serbia closer to the European Union. The recent visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered Serbia support in energy and joint gas procurement. However, von der Leyen also stated that there would be no opening of Cluster 3 [2], effectively freezing Serbia’s accession negotiations.

Serbia thus finds itself, according to Minić, “between two sides that no longer trust it”. After almost three years of Western tolerance towards Serbia’s “balancing”, it seems that the United States decided to draw a line. The West, Minić argues, no longer has patience for Russian interests in the Balkans, particularly as the Ukraine war continues without a clear victor.

The Lithium Factor: Colonial Extraction and EU Interests

Beneath the geopolitical manoeuvring lies another crucial dimension to EU-Serbia relations: Europe’s hunger for Serbian lithium. In July 2024, just months before the NIS sanctions, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz travelled to Belgrade to sign a memorandum of understanding on a “strategic partnership” for the extraction of critical raw materials. The centrepiece is Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto’s Jadar Valley project, which would become one of Europe’s largest lithium mines, potentially supplying 90% of the continent’s lithium needs for electric vehicle batteries.

The timing was no accident. After Serbia’s Constitutional Court conveniently ruled that the 2022 cancellation of the project was unconstitutional, Germany and the EU moved quickly to lock in the deal. In June 2025, the European Commission designated the Jadar project as one of 13 strategic critical raw materials projects outside the EU, offering coordinated support for financing and development.

For many Serbians, the lithium deal exposes the reality behind EU rhetoric about democracy and environmental protection. The project faces fierce opposition from over 60% of the Serbian public, who fear environmental devastation in one of the country’s most fertile agricultural regions. Studies have warned of water and soil contamination, with exploratory drilling already causing elevated levels of boron, arsenic and lithium in nearby rivers.

The hypocrisy has been particularly stark from Germany’s Green Party. Former State Secretary Franziska Brantner stated there would be no lithium mining in Germany until environmental safeguards evolve, whilst simultaneously endorsing extraction in Serbia. When the progressive party Die Linke demanded explanations about supporting Rio Tinto – a company with a long history of human rights violations – the German government replied it lacked time to verify whether Rio Tinto had committed violations outside Germany in the past 20 years.

“It’s very hypocritical coming from a Europe that claims to promote the rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, a healthy environment and clean air, water, and soil,” said activist Zlatko Kokanović of the local initiative Ne damo Jadar (We Won’t Give Up Jadar). “To the detriment of our health and our children’s, they want to take our lithium and turn us into a waste dump so they can live healthy.”

The lithium deal represents a carrot dangled alongside the NIS sanctions stick – a stark message that Serbia’s path to Europe requires both geopolitical compliance and acceptance of what critics call neo-colonial resource extraction. For Vučić, caught between domestic opposition and EU pressure, the lithium project may prove even more politically dangerous than the NIS sanctions.

The Serbian Left Divided

The sanctions and Serbia’s impossible position have exposed deep fissures within the Serbian left over how to respond to the Ukraine war and Serbia’s geopolitical predicament.

The green-left coalition Moramo (We Must), which includes the municipalist movement Ne Davimo Beograd (Don’t Let Belgrade Drown) and the Political Platform Solidarnost, evolved its position dramatically during the 2022 elections. Initially cautious, as the war progressed they spoke out strongly in favour of Ukraine and called for sanctions on Russia. After the elections, they actively advocated for Serbia to join EU sanctions and align with EU foreign policy.

Dobrica Veselinović, a leader of Ne Davimo Beograd, argued forcefully for joining sanctions against Russia. He accused Vučić’s political elite of having corrupt ties to Russia that prevented energy diversification and greater investment in renewables. In an interview with UnHerd, Nebojša Zelenović, co-leader of Moramo, explained that their coalition “stood alone in backing sanctions on Russia during last year’s general elections”.

However, this pro-sanctions stance came at an electoral cost. The coalition received a disappointing 4.6% of the vote, though they did cross the 3% threshold for parliamentary representation for the first time. Meanwhile, more pro-Russian parties performed better, reflecting the 63% of Serbs who hold the West responsible for the Russia-Ukraine war.

The decision by Ne Davimo Beograd to take a strongly pro-EU stance proved controversial even within the left coalition. The smaller Political Platform Solidarnost took a more nuanced approach, condemning both Russian aggression and Western imperialism. Critics from the radical left argued that this “slavish loyalty to the EU” by the green movement drowned out more balanced internationalist positions.

Svetomir Nikolić, coordinator of Solidarnost, critiques both Vučić’s connections to Putin and Western hypocrisy. He argues that the relationship between Serbian and Russian elites is primarily guided by the interests of wealthy clients and their lobbyists. “The Western media are not wrong here,” he told Posle Media. “But they fail to shed light on the essence of this connection between the Russian and Serbian financial and political elite.”

Nikolić insists that “only the permanent neutralisation of these Serbian elites will guarantee that Serbian society will emerge from the vicious 30 year cycle of violence and misery and become a constructive factor in the future of the region and, ultimately, Europe.”

Extra-Parliamentary Left: Small but Committed

Beyond the parliamentary green-left, Serbia hosts a vibrant if marginalised array of extra-parliamentary left organisations. The Party of Radical Left (PRL), founded in 2020, represents the most significant effort to build an anti-capitalist party outside the electoral mainstream. It grew from movements against privatisation, evictions, arms exports to Israel, deindustrialisation and student activism.

Marko Crnobrnja, the party’s international secretary, told Lefteast that “the Cold War has already started. The EU is geared towards militarisation to fight Russia today, maybe China tomorrow... It’s a confusing time because this left and right division is breaking up. A lot of left-wing forces are pushing for war in Russia and some right-wing forces are against it. It’s difficult for many left-wing parties to articulate a proper anti-war position.”

The Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative (ASI), a member of the International Workers’ Association since 2004, represents another strand of extra-parliamentary left organising. An ASI member told The Final Straw Radio that the biggest problem in Serbia is that “people would rather accept this ’anti-imperialist’ agenda of the current politicians because they believe that they are anti-capitalist but actually they are not. They’re capitalists because imperialism is always here, whether it’s Western or other.”

A Third Way? The Left Invokes Yugoslavia’s Non-Aligned Legacy

Amidst the polarised debate over whether Serbia should align with Russia or the West, the Serbian left has attempted to articulate a third position: a return to the principles of Yugoslav non-alignment. In their December 2022 Declaration on Anti-Imperialism, the Party of Radical Left stated: “That is why today it’s more important than ever for us to turn to the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement, to fight against the bloc-division of the world which the empire wishes to impose on us, and to insist on the right of countries like Serbia to choose their own path of development.”

The declaration continues: “At the same time, there is great pressure – from outside and within – for Serbia to ritually abandon its last vestiges of non-alignment and sovereignty. We must resist the attempts of the imperial bloc to draw Serbia into its projects and hybrid wars.”

The Yugoslav Model and Its Contemporary Relevance

This invocation of non-alignment refers to Yugoslavia’s role as a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961, alongside India, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia. Under Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia carved out an independent path between the US and Soviet blocs, maintaining good relations with both whilst refusing subordination to either. Yugoslav Foreign Minister Edvard Kardelj articulated this position in 1950, stating that “Yugoslavia cannot accept that mankind must choose between domination by one or other power.”

For four decades, this strategy allowed Yugoslavia to punch above its weight internationally. Yugoslav engineering companies worked globally, Yugoslav passports offered visa-free travel from the US to the Soviet Union, and Belgrade hosted major international conferences. The country achieved genuine economic development whilst maintaining political independence.

The left argues there is a fundamental distinction between Vučić’s opportunistic “balancing” – which extracts short-term benefits for elites whilst serving neither genuine sovereignty nor popular interests – and principled non-alignment based on opposing all forms of imperialism. The PRL’s declaration explicitly condemns both “NATO expansion” and positions that would align Serbia with Russian imperialism, framing their anti-imperialism as opposition to “the bloc-division of the world”.

Why Non-Alignment Faces Insurmountable Obstacles

However, the material conditions that enabled Yugoslav non-alignment no longer exist. Yugoslavia achieved its independent position because it had conducted its own communist revolution (not imposed by the Red Army), developed significant industrial capacity, and operated during a Cold War that created genuine space for a third force. Tito commanded enormous personal prestige internationally.

Serbia today possesses none of these advantages. Over 63% of Serbia’s trade is with the EU, and over 77% of direct foreign investment comes from the bloc. The country has been deindustrialised through waves of privatisation. Serbia retains only “observer” status in the NAM, not full membership like Yugoslavia held. As one analyst bluntly put it: “Serbia is not Yugoslavia, and a regime that embodies fear cannot attain the prestige and influence that Yugoslavia had.”

Most critically, Serbia’s dependence on Russia’s UN Security Council veto to block Kosovo’s international recognition creates structural vulnerability that Moscow exploits. This makes genuine equidistance between blocs impossible – a reality the left acknowledges but struggles to resolve.

The Non-Aligned Movement itself is a shadow of its Cold War incarnation. When Serbia hosted a NAM 60^th anniversary commemoration in 2021, with Russia prominently attending despite the movement’s name, critics noted the event “made a mockery of the term ’non-aligned’” and was “a pretty sad event” that “recalls a period when Yugoslavia enjoyed prestige well out of proportion to its size.”

For the Serbian left, invoking non-alignment serves several functions: it articulates principled opposition to subordination to any bloc; it provides historical legitimacy for refusing the binary choice between Western neo-colonialism and Russian imperialism; and it speaks to nostalgia for a period when the region enjoyed prosperity and respect. But it cannot overcome the fundamental reality that genuine non-alignment requires economic independence and geopolitical space that simply don’t exist in today’s unipolar-to-multipolar transition.

The left’s vision is thus more aspirational than practical – a principled stance without a clear path to implementation, leaving them to oppose both the lithium extraction the EU demands and the energy dependence Russia exploits, whilst lacking the power to prevent either.

The Cost of Balancing

Latinović emphasises that the NIS sanctions are not punishment, but an instrument of American foreign policy. The consequences will be felt most by Serbian citizens. From 1 November, Serbia enters winter under the threat of energy shortages and rising prices, whilst simultaneously facing a political crisis that has lasted almost a year.

Public opinion remains deeply divided. Polls show that most Serbs oppose sanctions against Russia, with 44% citing Serbia’s own traumatic experience with 1990s sanctions, 24% because they consider Russia Serbia’s greatest friend, and 12% due to economic concerns. Yet simultaneously, many Serbs still support EU membership, a tension that Vučić has exploited masterfully.

For the Serbian left, the challenge is acute: how to articulate an anti-imperialist position that doesn’t slide into support for Putin’s war, whilst simultaneously opposing NATO expansion and EU militarisation, all within a society where 70% support Russia over Ukraine and where any position on the war risks electoral irrelevance or accusations of treason.

As the Serbian regime’s impossible balancing act collapses, the question is not whether Belgrade will be forced to choose sides, but what that choice will cost – and who will pay the price.

Source: Based on reporting from Mašina, 17 October 2025/, additional research and analysis for ESSF by Adam Novak