After terrorist attack in northern Kosovo, Vuciqi reportedly to meet with Putin

Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq intends to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin this month in the margins of the forum “Belt and Road”, which will be held in China, Demosta reports, calling for sources from diplomatic circles. Leaders of Serbia and Russia have already publicly confirmed their participation at the Chinese summit, but an open question remains whether they will meet, which would be their first face-to-face meeting since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Vucic recently has announced that during the summit he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying he is Serbia's great friend and that he is looking forward to the meeting.

I expect serious and important discussions with our very, very important partners by the end of the year. In October, I will make an important visit to China. The big question is what will happen there, because Putin is also expected to reach”, Vuciq said in August.

Serbia will likely go to the polls again in December, so the meeting with Putin would definitely bring additional points to pro-Russian voters, writes Demostat.

It would not be the first time Vuciq played with the Russian president's card, whose popularity in Serbia is great and would not be the first time he met with him immediately before the elections.

Putin is still the most popular foreign politician in Serbia, and last year his popularity was only a percentage point lower than that of Vuciqi, Demosta research showed.

However, a meeting with Putin in the middle of the war in Ukraine and shortly after the recent attacks in northern Kosovo would send another signal that would not be well received in the West.

After the terrorist attack in Banjska a week ago, there are still many open questions and a part of the opinion there is no doubt that the Russian factor has been involved.

Several European Union member states have already called for the deployment of measures against Serbia if the state's connection with the attack proves true.

Vuciq and Putin were last seen in November 2021 in Sochi when, officially, the main theme of the conversation was to send gas.

At the end of May last year, Vuciq and Putin spoke on the phone, as the Serbian president said at the time, on a series of different topics and then agreed to a new gas deal for the next three years.

In June of this year, Vuciq told Italian media he had not communicated with Russian counterpart Putin for more than a year.

Russian top officials have not come to Serbia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov has had to visit our country in June last year, but Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria stopped flying his plane, so the visit was cancelled.

Vuciq met with the Russian diplomacy chief at last year's UN General Assembly margin in New York, while this year the head of Serbian diplomacy, Ivica Dacic, had a meeting with him.

Lavrov has then conveyed a message to Vuciqi through Dicqi, commenting on Vuciqi's speech to the UN: “The West will not forget this”.

President Aleksandar Vuciq himself has made this known during his appearance in RTS.