Russia and Serbia deepen military-technical co-operation

Russia and Serbia are deepening their military-technical co-operation, Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS) director Dmitry Shugayev told Serbian online newspaper Glas Javnosti on 6 July. He said that co-operation was being implemented in the area of military hardware deliveries and modernisation of existing platforms.

Serbia received Pantsyr-S1 air defence systems in early 2020. (Serbian MoD)

Recalling that the two countries signed an intergovernmental agreement on military-technical co-operation in 2014, Shugayev reported that an intergovernmental military-technical co-operation committee met on a regular basis.

Serbia has received several large deliveries of Russian-made materiel since 2016. Belgrade received a batch of Mi-17V-5 (NATO reporting name: ‘Hip’) utility helicopters in 2016–19. The two countries signed a contract in June 2018 for Mi-35M (NATO: ‘Hind’) helicopter gunships that were delivered in late 2019. “A battery of Pantsyr-S1 [NATO: SA-22 ‘Greyhound’] air defence systems was supplied [to Serbia] in early 2020. In 2019 the operators of both the Pantsyr-S1s and Mi-35Ms were trained,” he said. “Serbia is interested in acquiring other Russian-made air defence assets.”