Oil
In an interview for the Oct. 27 edition of the Danas daily, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Serbia Volodymyr Tolkach opined that Russia has been using oil and natural gas to blackmail Serbia.
According to him, Russia refuses to sell its shares in Serbia’s multinational oil and gas company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) because that would mean losing leverage against Serbia and influence in the Balkans.
“This is like some kind of déjà vu. The same blackmail-using-fuel tactic we in Ukraine experienced is now happening in Serbia. These methods are quite familiar to Ukrainians. There is no signing of long-term agreements or they are constantly postponed on a variety of pretexts – all leading up to the winter season. We went through the whole thing,” Tolkach stated.
The ambassador went on to claim that Russia has been keeping its partners in suspense for years, explaining that in Ukraine “everything began with economic blackmail” yet ended in war. “I don’t want to make predictions. . . about developments I’d never wish upon Serbia. Former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito understood that Stalin’s only interest in Yugoslavia was to subjugate it,” the diplomat said.
In his opinion, the sanctions the United States levied against NIS over the company’s majority Russian ownership were not introduced because of economic or political interests but rather because “Russia is leading an open war with Ukraine, violating international law.”
Asked to comment on Russian paramilitary camps in Serbia that soldiers are trained for the Ukrainian front, Tolkach said he is familiar with such operations. “I know quite a bit about these camps. There were some in Pridnestrovie, near Odessa. I think some might exist in Serbia too, because there are a lot of pro-Russian people here, even among the government,” Tolkach concluded.
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