Stradner: Kremlin can help Vucic with energy

Moscow can provide Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic with enough energy to help him when he is most politically needed, but at the same time maintains leverage, Ivana Stradner of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies tells REL.

After Vučić's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 26, she says the Russian recipe is quite simple - carrot and stick.

"If power changes, Putin, through this conversation, simultaneously leaves the door open for negotiations with the new government," she says.

Vucic spoke by phone with Putin, who is isolated in the West as his country is under sanctions over its five-year invasion of Ukraine.

After the hour-long conversation, Vučić expressed his belief that the annex to the agreement between Moscow and Belgrade on gas supplies will be extended.

"For Russia, energy is one of the main instruments of political influence, while the energy agreement between Serbia and Russia expires next week," Stradner emphasizes for REL's Balkan Service.

The short-term agreement for the supply of Russian gas to Serbia expires on September 30, while Serbia imports more than 80 percent of this energy from Russia.

Serbia has not reached an agreement on a long-term contract, as the previous three-year agreement expired in the summer of 2025, while Moscow has since been extending the contract's annexes for short-term periods.

Vučić said in an Instagram post that he believes the agreement will be extended as of Monday and that Serbia will continue, as he assessed, to have "good and low gas prices."

He said that Serbia pays around 318 euros per thousand cubic meters of gas, while, according to him, the market price is 868 euros per thousand cubic meters.

The European Union has called on Serbia on several occasions to diversify its sources and routes of natural gas supply, but despite Belgrade having started this process, the country is still heavily dependent on Russia.

Vučić announced that he had also discussed the Oil Industry of Serbia (NIS) with Putin, adding that here "the problem is more complicated."

NIS is under US sanctions due to its majority Russian stake, while the US authorities' license to operate the company, while negotiations for the sale of the Russian stake continue, has been renewed on a monthly basis. The latest license expires on September 30.

Negotiations for the sale of Russian shares between Russia's Gazprom Neft and Hungary's MOL have been ongoing for months, and the question remains whether they will be concluded before the elections in Serbia.

"Both sides have their cards on the table"

Ivana Stradner from the US Foundation for Defense of Democracies says that, all things considered, the conversation between Vučić and Putin can hardly be seen as just a protocol call.

She believes that in relations between Serbia and Russia, both sides have their cards on the table.

"Moscow considers Serbia an important partner that has not imposed sanctions on Russia, so that Moscow can avoid sanctions, while Belgrade needs Russian support for energy," Stradner said.

Although she does not see a geopolitical message in Vučić's conversation with Putin, but a very concrete conversation about energy, she does not rule out the security dimension either.

"Russian and Serbian security and intelligence structures have had contacts and developed cooperation for years. Therefore, the elections should not be forgotten. Moscow has spoken publicly about alleged Western attempts to cause a 'color revolution' in Serbia," she added.

Vučić spoke with Putin a day before his announced resignation due to participation in the early parliamentary elections, in which he is running for Prime Minister of Serbia.

He announced the elections in light of two years of mass protests led by students over the death of 16 people in a building collapse in Novi Sad.

The October 25 elections will be the first serious test for the populist leader who has ruled unchallenged for a decade and a half in Serbia.

Asked whether Vučić's conversation with Putin will affect the elections in Serbia, Stradner says that when the Russian FSB service stands by Vučić and denies the use of acoustic weapons, while presenting the student protests as a "color revolution", then "the myth of this friendship begins to crumble."

"The West is increasingly understanding Vučić's game"

Although Serbia is a candidate for membership in the European Union, Vučić has pursued a policy of balancing between the West and the East, intensifying relations with China and not giving up ties with Russia.

Precisely because of the failure to impose sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, along with the democratic regression in the country and the lack of progress in normalizing relations with Kosovo, Serbia is stalling in European integration.

After his conversation with Putin, Vučić said he is "sure" that Serbia's future presidents "will know how to take care of Serbia's interests and maintain this kind of balance and this kind of responsibility towards all important actors in international politics."

Saying that he thanked Russia and Putin for the cooperation over the last 14 years, he said that the topics of conversation with Putin included relations between Serbia and Russia, the war in Ukraine, and the situation in the Balkans.

Referring to Vučić's balancing policy, Stradner says that when one side does not give what he wants, the message is that "there is another option."

"Vučić sought money, investment and political legitimacy from the West, energy and security support from Moscow, and capital and political partnership from Beijing. This worked as long as everyone was willing to play by his rules," says Stradner.

Vučić has faced warnings in recent months from the European Parliament, several EU member states, but also from the US Congress.

From all these addresses have come warnings about democratic regression and Russian influence.

Ivana Stradner says that today "the West is increasingly understanding Vučić's game," adding that for years he has been promising Serbia's rapprochement with the West, "while in practice Serbia is increasingly staying closer to Moscow and Beijing."

"The narrative of Vučić as a 'pillar of stability' is increasingly resembling political marketing, and the biggest problem for Vučić today is that the West is listening less and less to what he says and seeing more and more to what he does," Stradner assesses.

During a debate in Congress in mid-September, bipartisan concern was expressed about Serbia's relations with Russia and China, while questions were also raised as to whether the US-Serbia Strategic Dialogue discussed the "malign influence" of Moscow and Beijing.

The US launched the Strategic Dialogue with Serbia in mid-year, which focuses on energy, while voices are being heard in Congress that this dialogue should be conditioned due to ties with Russia, China, and Iran, as well as democratic regression.

Also, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on September 23 that Serbia is involved in "potentially explosive issues", without specifying which specific issues are in question.

"Frustration is growing in Washington because Vučić has repeatedly promised one thing and done something else. Strategic Dialogue cannot forever be a substitute for strategic results," she says.

Stradner adds that Washington has not forgotten the 2020 promises from the Washington Agreement on economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo, "which have not been fulfilled, from energy diversification to disengagement from China."

Aleksandar Vučić in recent years, sometimes from the position of prime minister and sometimes from that of president, has repeated that Serbia's strategic path is the European Union.

But he has also emphasized that he will not give up on relations with Russia and China, and that he wants the best possible relations with the United States./REL