Russian ally Serbia denies supplying weapons to Ukraine

The Serbian president says his country has not sold arms to Ukraine and would not do so, after a leaked Pentagon report said Belgrade had agreed to provide arms to Kyiv, according to foreign media reports.

“Serbia has not nor will it export weapons to Ukraine,” Aleksandar Vučić told reporters on Thursday, according to the Beta news agency.

He added that the Balkan nation, a traditional Russian ally, “has not nor will it” send ammunition to either Ukraine or Russia.

“There is no paper that would show something like that.”

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the classified Pentagon document alleged that Serbia “has agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already”. The news agency said it could not independently verify the document’s authenticity.

The Serbian defence minister, Milos Vucevic, quickly rejected the allegations and said his country “has not and will not sell weapons to either Ukraine or Russia”.

“Someone obviously aims to drag Serbia into that conflict, but we adhere to our policy consistently,” he said in a statement.

The leaked Pentagon report is a summary of European governments’ responses to Ukraine’s requests for military training and “lethal aid”, according to media reports.

Apart from Belarus, Serbia is the only European nation that has not joined western sanctions against Moscow.

But the country, which aspires to join the EU, has backed several UN resolutions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.