Serbia buys 12 Rafale fighter jets

(Patria) - After Croatia, as a member of the EU and NATO, acquired French Rafale fighter jets, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced the purchase of the same aircraft - as many as 12 of them, writes Dnevnik.hr.

Serbia and France have, he said after visiting Paris and meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, reached an agreement on the procurement of Rafale aircraft, reportedly worth around three billion euros, and will sign a contract in Belgrade in about two months, which the French president will also attend.

Vučić's visit to France was actually organized for this lucrative deal, and it is interesting that Serbia is thus switching to NATO armament, although it claims it will not join this political-military alliance.

Until now, it has mainly acquired weapons from Russia, and it is indicative that Serbia's military cooperation with NATO is much more extensive and substantive than with Russia, which is constantly called its protector in Belgrade.

Admittedly, the Belgrade weekly "Vreme" states that Serbia does not have the capacity to accommodate these 12 Rafales and that it currently does not have pilots for this type of fighter jet.

According to Radio Free Europe (RSE), Serbia and France have developed cooperation in the field of defense.

Serbia has purchased helicopters worth 105 million euros from the French company "Airbus", two C-295 transport aircraft for 66 million euros, plus another 15 million euros for equipment and pilot training, and 18 Mistral anti-aircraft systems with 50 missiles, but RSE states that the price of the Mistral is unknown.

Serbia procures armament and military equipment from Western partners, as well as from Russia and China, for which it has received criticism from Brussels and Washington on several occasions.

According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Serbia invests the most in weapons and the military in the Western Balkans. From 2018 to 2022 inclusive, it allocated more than 1.4 billion dollars for this purpose.

Vučić has announced on several occasions that he will continue to procure armament and military equipment, for which he will allocate almost 740 million euros this year, RSE writes. Vučić hopes that with this generous purchase, he will win over France to help him with Kosovo.

Indeed, Macron and Vučić did not only discuss Rafales in Paris, but primarily Kosovo.

Macron welcomed Serbia's efforts towards EU membership and said that "Serbia's future is in the EU", but he requested the prosecution of those responsible for the terrorist attack in Banjska (Serbia, it should be reminded, has not extradited or prosecuted anyone who participated in the attack) and the resolution of the issue of normalizing relations with Kosovo, and advocated for the establishment of the Community of Serb Municipalities.

France will certainly support Kosovo's admission to the Council of Europe, as well as the upcoming resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica at the UN, due to which Vučić will soon go to New York to block it, or try to persuade African and Asian countries not to support it.