Serbian NIS Putin’s springboard for financing malignant operations

Author’s article by Dragan Sormaz for The Geopost

The entry into force of US sanctions against the Russian-owned Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) has completely closed the ring around Aleksandar Vučić and his, now four-legged stumbling, foreign policy. The mistakes made in Serbia’s geopolitical positioning over the past 15 years have come to be repaid, with no possibility of further delay or rescheduling of the incurred debt.

In just three days, official Belgrade was shocked by four devastating pieces of news. The first relates to the entry into force of sanctions against NIS, for which there is now only one solution: nationalization. However much Vučić, out of fear for his own safety, cowardly avoids this solution, sooner or later it will have to be implemented. The alternative is a complete collapse of Serbia’s energy and economic system, which Vučić’s regime would not survive. The decision that is inevitable must be made as soon as possible to minimize the damage incurred. Otherwise, a delayed decision on the nationalization of NIS creates the risk of damage that can no longer be repaired. Also, any attempt at a false transfer of ownership will not pass verification by US financial authorities. Because the reason for imposing sanctions on NIS is not so much due to the financing of the war in Ukraine, one day of which costs Russia as much as NIS’s annual profit, but much more due to the financing of the Kremlin’s agent network in Serbia, the region, and the EU. The existence of recently discovered camps and groups for hybrid operations in Moldova, France, and Germany did not happen by chance in Serbia. NIS is precisely Putin’s “golden goose,” used to finance malign operations and influence in this part of the world. The “Litije” (religious processions) in Montenegro, the promotion of the “Serbian World” and integralism in the region, literary evenings and panels on the Kosovo myth… all of this was supported by Russia with our money from NIS, without spending a single one of its rubles! Precisely because of this, in addition to changes in the ownership structure of NIS, it will be necessary to stop the financing of illegal Russian operations, but also to conduct a credible investigation into the company’s past financial flows. However, Vučić’s unpreparedness is surprising despite the great experience he has. He was apparently convinced that America would indefinitely postpone the sanctions! Many in Serbia even now, including him, believe that America and Russia will reach an agreement! Naively, Trump showed who the ‘boss’ is on the issue of Gaza and will continue to show it! After all, the weaker Russia is in the energy sector, the stronger America will be in the world. America will not miss this opportunity to achieve this, due to Putin’s mistake with the aggression!

The news about the entry into force of sanctions that existentially threaten the backbone of the country’s energy system was supplemented by the news of the absence of a long-term gas supply contract, which Putin had allegedly promised Vučić back in May. Instead of a three-year deal, Belgrade was offered only a three-month arrangement until the end of this year. On the other hand, even if it had received a long-term gas supply contract, it is unclear exactly how that gas would be delivered to Serbia given Bulgaria’s announcement of a cessation of Russian gas transit starting January 1, 2026. It is interesting that not a single media outlet in Serbia is dealing with this issue! The numbness of Serbian society is enormous, but this also shows how successful Russian propaganda is in Serbia! Everyone jumps at the mention of the possibility of pollution from the lithium mine, but no one reacts to the terrible reality of the lack of gas and oil ahead of the upcoming winter!

Official Belgrade fared no better in the clash of forces between Brussels and Beijing. A significant increase in tariffs on steel and a reduction in quotas for the import of this strategic product from Serbia will almost certainly shut down one of the largest Chinese investments in Serbia – the Smederevo Steel Mill. I should remind you that the owners of the Smederevo Steel Mill before the Chinese were the Americans, i.e., the US STEEL company! When Boris Tadić, by mistake—and he always and only made mistakes—refused to help them with a subsidy during the great crisis in the global steel market, the Americans did not blackmail Serbia, but sold (gifted) the steel mill to it for $1! Belgrade CERTAINLY cannot expect that from ‘friends’ in China and Russia! It was shown once again that even Chinese investments in Serbia have their purpose exclusively through the EU market. The question is why China does not open its market to steel produced in Serbia, given the widely praised free trade agreement between the two countries? Therefore, China is ready to invest in Serbia only if it can place its products on the EU market, without any readiness to import anything from Serbia except raw materials such as copper ore and construction timber.

The fourth piece of bad news for Vučić’s regime came from Priština, which boasted of the premature delivery of modern Turkish suicide drones. This pulled the rug out from under the secondary foreign policy pillar that Vučić was building by relying on personal relations with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It turned out that the expectations of Vučić and his family advisors that a victory by Donald Trump would create favorable circumstances for redrawing Balkan borders were quite naive and amateurish. Due to the lack of interest of the Trump administration in the Western Balkans region, space opened up for a stronger influence of Germany and Turkey, with whom Serbia can hardly align its declared national interests. And in collisions with these two powers, official Belgrade has virtually no chance. It is enough to state that with the delivery of a single tranche of drones, Turkey neutralized the significance of almost all the military equipment that Vučić showed at the military parade he organized in Belgrade in September.

It has been shown that any weapon Serbia can acquire is not worth much in the absence of allies. And in order to establish strategic alliances, it is necessary to formulate national interests in a language that the world understands and accepts, but also to abandon the meaningless and failed policy of military neutrality. Alliances do not arise from opportunism and a lack of values, but on the contrary—exclusively from shared values and shared interests. And for this, it will be necessary for new people to come to power in Belgrade, who will have enough strength and knowledge to finally pull Serbia out of the quagmire and delusions of the nineties on which Vučić’s neo-radical regime bases its existence. These new people are not those who only want to replace Vučić, without a significant change in foreign policy—which is the current Belgrade opposition—nor the phantom ‘student list’! These can only be those people who openly advocate for a democratic Serbia in the Euro-Atlantic world! There are many of them, they need to organize! Only such an alternative is a healthy alternative!