Serbia Accuses Ukraine of Airline Bomb Threats, Refuses to Join Sanctions on Russia

AirSerbia is the only European airline, aside from Turkish air companies, maintaining weekly flights to and from Russia following the start of the conflict in Ukraine. Photo: EX-YU Aviation

On Monday, April 18, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić accused Ukraine and one other unnamed EU country as the orchestrators of a series of bomb threats on AirSerbia planes. Other Serbian officials have alleged that the hoax emails were sent from either Ukraine or Poland.

Following the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine in late February 2022, Serbia has been the only European country aside from Turkey to continue its scheduled flights to Russia, even doubling the number of weekly flights from Belgrade to Moscow at one point. Over a dozen AirSerbia flights have had to return to their origin due to bomb threats on the planes flying this route since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport has been evacuated at least three times.

Oleg Nikolenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, responded to the accusations, saying, “[Vučić’s] statements about Ukraine’s alleged involvement in bomb threats to Serbian air carriers flying to Russia are false.”

Serbia has been criticized for its refusal to halt air travel to Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine. President Vučić has time and again defended the continuation of AirSerbia flights to Moscow and St. Petersburg, warning critics to not interfere with their decision and saying, “We are continuing these flights literally out of principle, because we want to show that we are a free country and we make our own decisions.” 

From left to right: US Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Thom Tillis (R-NC), in the US embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, April 19, 2022. Photo: Darko Vojinović/ Associated Press

The following day on Tuesday, April 19, a US Senate Delegation urged Belgrade to reconsider enacting sanctions on Russia. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters that “This is a moment where there is great risk if we, as a democratic community, don’t send a united message about the consequences of Russia’s behavior in Ukraine.”

Despite voting to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in three UN resolutions, Serbia has maintained that it will not join international sanctions on its allies in Moscow. The Western Balkan country is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas and oil, but balances this relationship with its responsibilities tied to its bid for EU membership. Serbia’s division of interests between the Western body versus its Eastern military and economic partners of Russia and China place the country in a particularly difficult role in terms of its loyalties and Belgrade’s decisions on punishment via sanctions.

Serbia has also shown reluctance to enact sanctions on Russia due to its own history of being the target of sanctions and a 1999 NATO bombing campaign during the conflict in Kosovo. President Vučić, who recently won a second five-year term in office, stated,“We haven’t imposed sanctions against anyone because…we don’t believe sanctions change anything. You can pressure and force Serbia but this is our genuine opinion.”

Ukraine’s Nikolenko addressed Serbia’s unwillingness to impose sanctions, stating, “We call on Belgrade to stand up for the truth and fully join in supporting Ukraine and upholding the values on which a united democratic Europe has been founded.”

As the war in Ukraine will soon reach its two-month mark, many Western nations have only continued to increase sanctions on Moscow in an attempt to force Russia to end the violence. So long as the Kremlin rests assured that it still has reliable allies in Europe, like Serbia (and even in NATO and the EU via Hungary), the threat of a unified global front is minimized.