Kraemer: Sanction of Volin is a warning, some Western leaders have been fed up with Vuciki manipulations

For Richard Kraemer, an associate at the US Foreign Policy Research Institute, criticism of Western media is not surprising: “These modest displays of discontent with Belgrade show that some Western leaders are fed up with the manipulating jokes of [Serbian president Aleksandar] Vuciq”, he says.

US Ambassador to Belgrade Christopher Hill has defended the US approach to relations with the Vuciqi government in an interview for the Serbian Voice Service of America.

You have politics not only for success, but because they are the right policies to have”, Hill said. “We weigh our interest in formulating a policy and continue with it with the idea that this is the right thing to do by our government”.

Johanna Deimel, a German expert on the Balkans, noted published reports based on an revealed American intelligence document, that Serbia has silently accepted to provide Ukraine's weapons for its defence against the Russian occupation.

“On the one hand, Belgrade has been criticised for refusing to join EU sanctions against Russia, and on the other hand, it appears that, for example, arms shipments to Ukraine are helping to close one eye elsewhere”, she said.

She also said that efforts to draw Serbia closer to the West are complicated by the Russian influence on the region's media and its investments in the energy sector in the Balkans.

Kraemer stressed that Serbia is almost entirely dependent on natural gas supplies from Russia and preserves trade and military ties with Moscow, while pro-Russian feelings are high in the country, writes Voice of America, in a text with the title “the West is changing its policy towards Serbia?

The West “has bent back to try to lure Belgrade into the transatlantic carota herd, while looking from the side to the status of the representative of Serbia in the face of the Balkan agenda of the Kremlin”, he said.

Why did they think this would work, given Vucciki's open refusal for, remains a mystery to me”

“The Treasury Department's Sanction on Volin ? Unpredictable since he is an official of the Serbian government in office ? can rightly be interpreted as a warning”, Kraemer said. “Mbets to see whether Washington and his partners have the courage to sanction others similar to the vulin”.