How does the Russian foreign minister get to Serbia if the states in between don’t want to allow his plane to fly over? Not at all. In Belgrade one should be relieved that the controversial visit has burst.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks of an “unimaginable process” in view of the denied overflight rights.
Lack of self-confidence has never been a problem in Russian diplomacy. However, as a report by the Interfax news agency on Sunday evening shows, Moscow is also aware that one’s own abilities are not limitless. An unnamed Russian diplomat said his office was not yet capable of teleportation.
Teleportation is the instantaneous movement of an object from one place to another without crossing the space in between. Friends of the science fiction classic «Star Trek» should also be familiar with the term «beaming».
Moscow is outraged by the blockade
The background to the curious statement is Sergei Lavrov’s failed visit to Serbia. The Russian foreign minister was due to travel to Belgrade for two days on Monday to meet with President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Porfirye and Milorad Dodik, the most powerful Serbian politician in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia has maintained friendly relations with Moscow even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On Sunday evening, however, it became known that Serbia’s neighboring countries would not give Lavrov’s government plane an overflight permit. Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro were explicitly mentioned. But Romania and Croatia are also likely to have refused the overflight.
This means that Lavrov’s journey to inland Serbia would actually only be possible by means of teleportation – or with a commercial flight connection. On Monday, after a meeting with the Russian ambassador in Belgrade, President Vucic confirmed that the visit would not take place.
Lavrov was outraged that his travel plans were thwarted. This “unimaginable incident” shows how far the EU and NATO are willing to go to prevent Serbia’s partnership with Russia, the Russian foreign minister said on Monday. He hopes to be able to welcome his Serbian counterpart Nikola Selakovic to Moscow soon.
The director of the Russian space agency Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter that the advantage of the Sarmat rocket is that it does not bother about the overflight rights of Bulgarians, Romanians or Montenegrins. Sarmat is a newly developed, nuclear-capable ICBM of the Russian armed forces.
Вот чем хорош “Сармат”? On your three-quarters, long-lived rooms and pre-dated places. Равно как и у прочих шведов.
— РОГОЗИН (@Rogozin) June 5, 2022
Serbia is in trouble in the Ukraine war
For Serbia, however, the affair offers an elegant way out of an embarrassing situation. Because Lavrov’s travel plans were visibly inconvenient for Belgrade, as the at best lukewarm statements in advance showed. The Serbian government is under Western pressure to go along with European sanctions against Russia. The visit of the Russian foreign minister would inevitably have led to further criticism of the Serbian seesaw course in the Ukraine war.
This is all the more true as Vucic announced just last week after a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin that a new gas supply contract with preferential terms had been agreed.
Olaf Scholz is also expected in Belgrade this week. The German Chancellor is likely to raise the issue of sanctions again. There were even concerns that Scholz could cancel his trip if Lavrov was received in Belgrade shortly before him. The pro-government tabloid Blic headlined on Monday: “The air blockade is the rescue of Serbia.”
Lavrov plans to travel to Turkey on Wednesday
In the Ukraine war, Serbia likes to emphasize its special role as a neutral state that is also available to host negotiations. In reality, however, Belgrade has neither the weight nor the credibility to play a formative role. The tug-of-war over Lavrov’s trip is the best proof of that.
Greater hopes are attached to Lavrov’s visit to Turkey, where the Russian foreign minister is expected on Wednesday. Ankara has been negotiating with Moscow and Kyiv for some time to create a corridor under international supervision to bring Ukrainian grain to world markets through the port of Odessa.
According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s adviser Ibrahim Kalin, Lavrov will travel to Turkey with a team of experts to discuss the plan. More than 20 million tons of grain are in Ukrainian warehouses and cannot be exported because of the ongoing Russian naval blockade. However, Ukraine has not yet approved the plan due to concerns about the military protection of Odessa.