Serbia will not impose Russia sanctions – election winner’s rep to RT

Serbia will maintain its longstanding ties with Russia and will not impose sanctions on Moscow despite EU pressure, a representative of the winning Student List movement has told RT Balkan.

The student-led opposition secured 52.73% of the vote in Sunday’s parliamentary election, according to the latest preliminary results, defeating the coalition of former President Aleksandar Vucic. He conceded defeat but warned that Belgrade could abandon its resistance to EU pressure and sanction Russia within months.

The movement emerged from nearly two years of anti-government protests sparked by the November 2024 collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people.

Speaking on Monday, Jovo Bakic, a university professor and Student List representative, said: “We respect Russia both as a great power and as our historically important partner and, in many cases, protector.”

“There will be no changes in that regard,” he added.

Recalling the harsh UN sanctions against Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when Serbia was one of its constituent republics, Bakic said restrictions imposed by “small Serbia” would have little effect on Russia but would be “symbolically very bad” for Belgrade.

Under Vucic, Serbia resisted EU demands to adopt the bloc’s restrictions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, despite pursuing EU membership. The Student List campaigned primarily on domestic reforms, leaving several contentious foreign policy questions unaddressed.

According to Reuters, leading candidates of the victorious movement have said the incoming government would halt arms exports to conflict zones, including sales to Western intermediaries that subsequently supply weapons to Ukraine.

Vucic previously said European buyers could decide how to use Serbian ammunition, including whether to send it to Ukraine, although Belgrade has denied supplying Kiev directly.