It does not make sense that the West is strengthening Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who maintains relations between Belgrade and Moscow, former US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker said on Thursday.

Volker, the former special envoy for Ukraine, told Radio Free Europe that Vucic is trying to turn Serbia into “Russia in the Balkans” while trying to maintain “certain freedom of manoeuvre and independence with moves like the purchase of French Rafales.”

Therefore, he said, Vucic is making Serbia “a dominant country in the Western Balkans that plays the card of the Serb minority in other countries, relying to a great extent on Russia, its energy suppliers and the Russian Orthodox Church”.

Volker said that the sale of Serbian shells to Ukraine is not only a business deal, but also part of Belgrade's efforts to play on both sides.

“It seems that we are getting more engaged around Vucic while losing Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia little by little. Bulgaria is in a terrible state. There is an expression in the US that we spend more time on our enemies than on our friends,” he said.

Volker indicated that if Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in Ukraine and the West backs down or loses, the world is headed for global war because it will encourage China, Iran and Venezuela to think they can achieve their ambitions.