Sergei Lavrov will not travel to Serbia this week, as planned. Three neighboring countries of the Balkan country and members of NATO closed their airspace, preventing the passage of the official plane of the Russian Foreign Minister, in what the Kremlin has described as "hostile action".
Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro closed their airspace for an official Russian plane in which Lavrov would have arrived to visit Belgrade, the Serbian capital, on Monday.
The Russian foreign minister is one of the top officials under Western sanctions imposed on Russia for its military campaign in Ukraine.
Lavrov himself said at a press conference on Monday that the attitude of these countries was "outrageous" and that it is an "unprecedented action by some NATO countries." He added that "if the Russian foreign minister's visit is seen in the West as almost a global threat, then things in the West are seen to be very bad."
Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov said that actions like this cause problems in meetings at the highest level of diplomatic contacts. He warned, however, that this will not prevent Moscow from maintaining contacts with friendly countries, such as Serbia.
In international institutions, Serbia has the support of Russia regarding the situation in Kosovo, whose independence it does not recognize.
Furthermore, Serbia depends almost entirely on Russian gas, and ten days ago its president, Aleksandar Vucic, announced that Russia will continue to supply gas to Serbia, for which they will sign a three-year agreement.
The incident was already denounced on Sunday night by the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, María Zajárova. "Today the countries surrounding Serbia have closed the communication channel, refusing to authorize the overflight of Sergei Lavrov's plane, which was headed to Serbia," she told Italian channel La7, quoted by Russian agencies. "The Russian delegation was supposed to arrive in Belgrade for talks. But the EU and NATO member countries have closed their airspace," she added.
For his part, Serbian President Vucic confirmed on Monday the cancellation of the visit, although according to Efe he did not give details.
"The ambassador of the Russian Federation (Alexander) Botsan-Kharchenko has informed me of the reasons that have prevented Minister Lavrov's visit to Belgrade and has brought the documents that corroborate it," Vucic said on his Instagram account.
