Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s has been forced to cancel his trip to Serbia after countries around Serbia, notably Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro, closed their airspace to his aircraft.
A senior Russian Foreign Ministry official stated that this caused the trip to be cancelled, commenting: “Our diplomacy has yet to master teleportation.”
Following the event, Lavrov lashed out at the countries, stating they wanted to show their “servility” to the EU, adding that “the unthinkable” happened and that Serbia wwas deprived of the right to conduct international policy:
“This is another very clear and instructive demonstration of how far NATO and the European Union can go in using the most low-grade methods of influencing those who are guided by national interests and are not ready to sacrifice their principles, their dignity for the sake of the very rules that the West imposes instead of international law”.
He added: “We have invited Nikola Selakovic, the (Serbian) foreign minister, to visit Russia in the very near future.”
Political scientist Jasmin Mujanović, author of “Hunger & Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans” commented: “It is Unclear how [Serbian President] Vucic thought this would go given the Russia sanctions but an illustration of how isolated Serbia has become.”
Lavrov cancels Serbia trip after neighbours close airspace https://t.co/idf0C9Svwy
— EURACTIV (@EURACTIV) June 6, 2022
Picture: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (copyright): “Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons”