Zelenskyy's Belgrade visit advances arms, energy and defence ties with Serbia

On 7 August 2026, Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Belgrade to a blue-and-yellow honour guard. The colours of the Ukrainian flag, displayed in a country that has refused to impose sanctions on Russia, made for an arresting image. The substance behind the symbolism ran deeper than the photographs suggested.

It was the Ukrainian president's first official visit to Serbia, a state whose political and cultural affinities with Moscow are well established. Serbia has not joined the European Union's sanctions regime against Russia. Polling consistently shows public sympathy for the Russian position, rooted in shared Orthodox Christian heritage, historical alliance and widespread resentment over NATO's 1999 bombing campaign and Kosovo's subsequent secession. Yet behind that public posture, Belgrade has been pursuing a rather different course.

Ammunition through the back door

Serbia has become one of the more consequential sources of ammunition for Ukraine's war effort, albeit through channels that neither side formally acknowledges. Former United States ambassador to Belgrade Christopher Hill has confirmed that Washington helped Kyiv obtain a significant quantity of Serbian-made ammunition. Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, has accused Serbia's defence industry of "trying to shoot Russia in the back."

That accusation carries weight beyond rhetoric. In spring 2025, an explosion at a Serbian defence plant that had been supplying ammunition to Ukraine injured seven workers. Serbian officials did not publicly attribute the blast to sabotage, but the incident fits a well-documented pattern of Russian-directed attacks on defence infrastructure across Europe, from arms depots in the Czech Republic to production facilities elsewhere in the Balkans.

Serbia's arms exports to Ukraine operate through intermediary countries and end-user certificate arrangements that obscure the final destination. Belgrade has never declared itself a weapons supplier to Kyiv, and President Aleksandar Vucic continues to deny it publicly. The paper trail tells a different story. Tracking data, customs records and diplomatic confirmations have all established that Serbian-produced shells and munitions have reached Ukrainian forces in substantial quantities.

This arrangement suits both parties. Ukraine needs artillery ammunition, and its own production capacity, though expanding, cannot meet demand. Serbia's defence industry benefits from the revenue. Vucic can maintain his domestic posture of friendship with Moscow while quietly enabling the flow of materiel that keeps Ukrainian guns firing. By some estimates, Serbia has provided more practical military support to Ukraine than several EU member states that have been far more vocal in their backing of Kyiv.

The Israeli drone connection

Zelenskyy's visit also opened the door to a potential three-way defence arrangement involving Israel. Serbia, alongside Czechia, has become one of Israel's closest European partners. Elbit Systems, the Israeli defence manufacturer, is opening a drone production facility in Serbia in autumn 2026. Vucic invited Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian policymakers to attend the opening.

The invitation was not ceremonial. Ukraine has been seeking to expand its drone capabilities throughout the war, and Israeli technology is among the most advanced in the sector. A defence-industrial partnership that channels Israeli expertise through Serbian production facilities to Ukrainian forces would represent a significant development, though any such arrangement remains at the discussion stage.

For Israel, the calculus is delicate. Jerusalem has been cautious about overt military support for Ukraine, partly because of its need to maintain a working relationship with Russia in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. A Serbian-based production line could offer a degree of separation that direct exports to Kyiv would not.

Gas storage and energy leverage

Energy was firmly on the agenda. Serbia's energy minister met Zelenskyy's plane on arrival, a signal that energy cooperation ranked high among priorities. Serbia sits on the planned Vertical Gas Corridor, a north-south route designed to bring liquefied natural gas from the United States and gas from Azerbaijan into Central and Eastern Europe, reducing the region's dependence on Russian supply.

Serbia's own gas storage capacity is limited and entangled with Russian ownership structures linked to Gazprom. Ukraine, by contrast, operates the largest underground gas storage facilities in Europe. Earlier in 2026, the United States and a dozen European governments, including Serbia, signed a regional energy security partnership that acknowledged Ukraine's storage capacity as a strategic asset.

The discussions in Belgrade explored whether Serbia could draw on Ukraine's underground storage to reduce its reliance on Gazprom-linked infrastructure. If such an arrangement progresses, it would give Ukraine a degree of leverage over Serbia's energy security and further align Belgrade's practical interests with Kyiv's, regardless of what Serbian public rhetoric says about Russia.

Vucic's election calculation

The timing of the visit was hardly convenient for Vucic domestically. He is expected to call snap parliamentary elections, with October or November 2026 the most likely window. Hosting the Ukrainian president months before a difficult election was not a move designed to win over Serbia's pro-Russian nationalist voters, for whom any engagement with Kyiv is suspect.

The calculation appears to have been directed outward rather than inward. Vucic is seeking to advance Serbia's EU accession process and deepen ties with Washington. A visible show of support for Ukraine, however modest, signals to Brussels and to the US that Belgrade is willing to play a constructive role, even within the constraints of its domestic politics. It is a balancing act that Vucic has maintained for years: public warmth towards Moscow, practical cooperation with the West, and a determination not to let either relationship force a rupture with the other.

Whether that balancing act can survive the electoral test is another question. Serbia's pro-Russian parties and media will have noted the honour guard and the handshake. Vucic's opponents on the nationalist right will press whatever advantage they can extract from the imagery of their president standing alongside a wartime Ukrainian leader.

Ukraine as diplomatic actor

The most significant aspect of the visit may be what it reveals about Ukraine's diplomatic posture after more than four years of full-scale war. Kyiv has moved beyond the small circle of staunch allies that defined its early diplomatic efforts. It is now building relationships in the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle East, regions where Russian influence has long been entrenched.

The Belgrade visit demonstrates that Ukraine can draw a potential partner closer without demanding the public declarations of solidarity that Belgrade cannot realistically deliver. This is pragmatic statecraft from a country fighting for survival. Ukraine does not need Serbia to hold a press conference announcing military support. It needs ammunition, storage capacity and defence-industrial cooperation, and it is getting at least some of those things through channels that require neither side to acknowledge them.

For Washington and Brussels, there is an uncomfortable lesson. Western capitals have treated Ukraine primarily as a cause to be defended. Kyiv is demonstrating that it is also an international actor capable of advancing Western interests in places where traditional diplomacy has struggled. Serbian ammunition reaching Ukrainian forces, and potentially Israeli drone technology flowing through Serbian production lines, are outcomes that no amount of Western lecturing to Belgrade about its Russia ties had previously achieved.