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.
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