Vucic: Serbia has long-range air-to-ground missiles, Zagreb will not decide about what we will have

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday evening Serbia had long-range air-to-ground missiles and would continue to acquire them.

In an interview for the RTS, Vucic said Serbia also had other military capabilities that had still not been revealed.

He said Serbian military engineers had successfully integrated Chinese-made hypersonic missiles with Russian-made fourth-generation MiG-29 fighter jets and that the aircraft were now the best-equipped MiG-29s in Europe and, possibly, the entire world.

"Those are destructive CM-400 missiles. Depending on their weight, which is up to 950 kg, they can hit targets that are up to 200 or up to 400 km away. We have a significant number of those missiles, and we will have even more of them," Vucic said.

He noted that the missiles were very expensive but that, compared to the price paid by Pakistan, Serbia had received a "small discount" from China.

"But they are terribly expensive and terribly efficient missiles," he added.

He said the missiles had performed excellently in the Pakistan-India conflict, destroying the radar unit of an S-400 anti-aircraft missile system.

"We have many more things you have not seen yet and we are acquiring many more things, and we will continue to acquire them," he told the interviewer.

Asked to comment on a statement by the Croatian PM, who has announced he would inform NATO of Serbia's acquisition of new hypersonic weapons, Vucic responded that Serbia had a fair relationship with NATO.

"We are not going to NATO, we will be safeguarding our neutrality, but we have a fair, good relationship, and we will continue to build it," Vucic said.

He noted that it was not good to underestimate the Serbian Armed Forces, but that he was even less willing to underestimate those who were forming military alliances against Serbia, such as the one formed by Zagreb, Tirana and Pristina.

"I am the one who has been the most targeted by the vilest, the evilest and the most mendacious campaign coming from Zagreb. No one in the world has been targeted by such a campaign for a year and a half. I am not worried in the least. They have tried to destroy our country, but they have failed. We will also have exercises with NATO soon. We do not want any hostilities, and we will have none. But will Zagreb decide about what Serbia will have and how Serbia will be safeguarding its integrity, its freedom and its country? As long as I am president, Zagreb will not decide about that," Vucic noted.

Vucic: Serbia's relations with US getting better and better

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday evening Serbia-US relations were getting better and better, and noted that Serbia maintained contact with the US administration at various levels almost on a daily basis and that he, too, was involved.

"We are doing more work than talk, and I am satisfied with the relationship with the Americans, and I believe that it will be even better and that that will become visible in the period to come," Vucic said in an interview for the RTS.

Vucic: We will have good relations with Russia, choice of partner for NIS remains an issue

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday evening he had done everything in his power to preserve good Serbia-Russia relations but that he did not like the fact the Russian side had at no point offered to sell the Russian majority-owned oil company NIS to Serbia.

NIS is under US sanctions due to its Russian majority ownership and talks about an acquisition of the Russian stake in the company by Hungary's MOL are underway.

"Serbia has given much in a bid to preserve good relations with Russia, more than any other European country. Sometimes I feel bad because it seems to me that they appreciate as closer friends countries that have imposed all kinds of sanctions on them and that dare not establish a train line to Moscow, let alone flights. It is their choice. My conscience is clear, I have been trying to ensure we preserve the traditionally good relations, and I think we have them. And I think no one will destroy them," Vucic told the RTS in an interview.

Serbia has a vital interest in having good relations with Russia, and it will have them, he noted

. "Will the issues of the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kosovo and the choice of a partner for NIS always be there? They will. But there is no doubt whatsoever that we will have to keep building friendly relations in the future," Vucic said.