Serbia, the only country in Europe that has refused to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already, a classified Pentagon document said.
The document, a summary of European governments’ responses to Ukraine’s requests for military training and “lethal aid” or weapons, was among dozens of classified documents posted online in the past few weeks.
Entitled Europe: Response to Ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict, the document in chart form lists the “assessed positions” of 38 European governments in response to Ukraine’s requests for military assistance.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The chart showed that Serbia declined to provide training to Ukrainian forces, but had committed to sending lethal aid or had supplied it already.
It also said that Serbia had the political will and military ability to provide weapons to Ukraine.
The document was marked “Secret” and “NOFORN,” prohibiting its distribution to foreign intelligence services and militaries.
It was dated March 2 and embossed with the seal of the office of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Reuters could not independently verify the document’s authenticity.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s office and the Ukrainian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Pentagon also did not immediately respond to questions about the document’s reference to Serbia and has previously declined to comment on any of the leaked documents.
Vucic’s government has professed neutrality in the Ukraine war, despite the country’s historic, economic and cultural ties with Russia.
“If this document is accurate, it either shows Vucic’s duplicity vis a vis Russia or he’s under enormous pressure from Washington to deliver weapons to Ukraine,” said Janusz Bugajski, an expert on eastern Europe with the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, a foreign policy institute.
The US Department of Justice is investigating the leak, while the Pentagon is assessing the damage done to US national security.
The Pentagon chart divided the responses to Ukraine’s requests for aid into categories: Countries that had committed to provide training and lethal aid; countries that had already provided training, lethal aid or both; and countries with the military ability and the political will “to provide future lethal aid.”
Austria and Malta were the only two countries marked “No” in all of the categories.
The disclosure of the chart came just over a month after documents posted on the Telegram messaging app purportedly showed the shipment by a Serbian arms maker of 122mm Grad ground-to-ground rockets to Kyiv in November last year.
The documents included a shipment manifest and a Ukrainian government end-user certificate.
Moscow last month said that it had asked Belgrade for an official explanation of the alleged deliveries, the state-run TASS news agency quoted Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.
Arms manufacturer Krusik Corp of Valjevo denied providing rockets or other weaponry to Ukraine.
Vucic called the allegations “a notorious lie.”
“We didn’t export any weapons or ammunition to Russia or Ukraine,” he said during a March 5 visit to Qatar.
Reuters could not independently confirm the authenticity of the shipment documentation posted on Telegram.
Since the war began in February last year, Vucic has tried to balance close ties with Moscow with his goal of joining the EU.
Serbia is the only holdout among Europe’s 44 countries in imposing sanctions on Russia.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS