Belarus has long been sympathetic to Serbia, which allowed hostile actions under pressure from Brussels, Pechat writes. But it couldn't go on like this forever. Alexander Lukashenko recalled the support that Minsk once provided to Belgrade, and urged to decide.
Philip Kinsman
"We are sorry that such a decision has been made. It clearly demonstrates loyalty to the center of power, which demands such actions and is ready to reward them," said Andrei Savinykh, a spokesman for the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in June 2012, when the interim Serbian government of Mirko Tsvetkovich decided to support the sanctions that the European Union imposed against Belarus. Then Serbia wanted to "coordinate its foreign policy" with the European Union in this way. Serbia at that time proved its loyalty to Brussels in every possible way, including to the detriment of real and long-standing friendship with Belarus. It also played a role that the Tsvetkovich government was temporary and new political forces were expected to come to power, which could lead a more sovereign policy towards Minsk (and other states).
And indeed, after the arrival of Tomislav Nikolic as president and Alexander Vucic as Prime Minister, the situation has changed in many ways. Relations between Belgrade and Minsk began to differ more and more from the times of Slobodan Milosevic's rule: they could be called fraternal, especially when the idea of Serbia joining the confederation that Russia and Belarus created in 1996 was expressed. Perhaps the idea was unrealistic, but Lukashenka's decision, made in April 1999, when only NATO bombs and sometimes planes with negotiators "visited" Belgrade, was quite real, to come to the Serbian capital, which was then subjected to aggression by 19 powerful countries, and thereby demonstrate its support to Serbia. He brought 500 tons of humanitarian aid with him. Westerners will say that this is very small compared to 22,000, and then 79,000 tons of aid in the form of explosives, which the West supplied to us at that moment. And, of course, these 500 tons will not compare with the help that the West provided us later, after 2000. Nevertheless, at that moment Lukashenka made an important symbolic gesture. A real widow's mite, if you remember the Gospel.
Years of cooling
After the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic and the adoption of the idea that there is no alternative to the European path, it is quite natural that relations between Belgrade and Minsk began to atrophy. Their cooling surprisingly coincided with the appointment of Srechko Djukic as Serbia's ambassador to Minsk. An idea of his diplomatic activity is given, for example, by the fact that he was a member of the Forum on International Relations of the European Movement in Serbia, as well as his (white) Russophobic comments to the Luxembourg media about the situation in the European East. Among his other "achievements", it is worth remembering with what result he and the government that sent him to Belarus worked to bring two once very close peoples closer together: Lukashenko has never visited Serbia in 15 years — from the moment of the bombing until 2014. And in 2014, the Belarusian leader sent humanitarian aid to Serbia, but not because of NATO bombing, but in connection with catastrophic floods. To be very precise, Lukashenka flew to Serbia in 2009, but only to attend a business forum as a private person.
The Serbian side behaved the same way. Since the visit of the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Zoran Lilic to Minsk in 1996 and until Tomislav Nikolic's trip to Belarus in March 2013 (just ten months after taking office as president), no one had ever thought of visiting Belarus. That visit of Nikolic actually gave a great impetus to the development of bilateral relations. The Presidents then signed a joint statement on the future cooperation of the two countries. This was followed by the already mentioned visit of Lukashenka to Belgrade and Nikolic's return trip to Minsk in November 2015, and after that there were a number of bilateral meetings at the level of ministries and departments. In January 2017, Alexander Vucic went to Minsk as prime minister, and in December Alexander Lukashenko paid him a return visit as a colleague — president.
After that meeting, unfortunately, bilateral relations began to decline again. Of course, not as fast as during the rule of the "Democratic Opposition of Serbia". In August 2020, Serbia again succumbed to Western pressure and supported European sanctions against Belarus, as well as the European declaration, in which Lukashenko was not recognized as the legitimate president. Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic then expressed hope that Alexander Lukashenko "will not object", expecting the same understanding as in 2012. It seems that this is how it turned out, because Belarus, led by the "illegitimate" president, sent us four MiG-29s in April and May 2021. As a gift, although they can be regarded as a continuation of humanitarian aid.
But those four MiGs were not enough for Serbia to find the strength and resist in December 2021 the European demands for the harmonization of foreign policy. Therefore, we again partially supported the sanctions. However, this time Belgrade did not receive a silent understanding from Minsk, and on January 30, 2022, Belarus decided to ban the import of food from Serbia. It is worth admitting that both Serbia's sanctions against Belarus and the retaliatory Belarusian sanctions were actually symbolic, but, as we have already seen, the relations between the two countries have always been distinguished by pronounced symbolism. Serbia also supported European sanctions in May 2022.
Advice from Lukashenka
However, on August 21 of this year, Serbia, as the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrel regretfully informed the public, did not support the decision of the European Union to expand sanctions against Belarus. This is good, because the new package of sanctions was no longer so symbolic. Until now, only food products, such as pork, dairy and confectionery products, fruits, vegetables, were on the sanctions list. But, according to the Economic Chamber of Serbia, the main goods that Serbia exported to Belarus were tires, paints and coatings, construction materials and the like. The new European list of sanctions against Belarus included firearms and ammunition, as well as goods and technologies suitable for use in the aviation and space industry… In fact, these were indirect sanctions against the Russian Federation, because, as Brussels reported, their goal was to prevent Russia from circumventing the bans through Belarus.
But it didn't seem enough to Alexander Lukashenko, and he took the opportunity at the time of the appointment of a new ambassador to Belgrade, Sergei Malinovsky, to send us a message, or rather, to give "brotherly advice". "We need to understand the policy that Serbia is pursuing and wants to pursue with respect to Belarus. If they want, then there must be a result in trade and economic terms. If they want to wag their tail, roughly speaking, and support European and American sanctions against Belarus, this is their job, let them be determined and supported if they have forgotten the kindness with which we went to them," Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting with the newly appointed ambassadors.
The President of Belarus made it clear that it was time for Belgrade to stop its game of throwing around European sanctions and finally choose a position towards his country. However, there is also a subtext in Lukashenka's message that runs through between the lines. As I wrote above, the sanctions that Belgrade has so far imposed against Belarus under pressure from Brussels, as well as Minsk's retaliatory sanctions, were practically harmless and did not have too much effect on the already insignificant trade turnover between the countries. A new package from Brussels could change the situation, but that's not the point. The main problem, apparently, is the possible "alignment" of Serbia's foreign policy with the policy that the European Union is pursuing towards Russia. If Serbia had taken this step, the situation would have become much more serious. Lukashenka, apparently, wanted to convey the idea: come to your senses and do not imagine that we will always treat your game with understanding. Moscow will not want to understand anything at all. We can say that this negates all the assumptions of supporters of anti-Russian sanctions in Serbia, who, like Ana Brnabic in 2020, hope that "no one will object." It will be, because love presupposes reciprocity.
