Serbian President Alexander Vucic suggested that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had not offered to hold a telephone conversation with him for two and a half years in order not to put the Serbian leadership at risk and not to increase foreign policy pressure on the Balkan country.
On Monday night, on TV Pink, the Serbian head of state denied accusations by political opponents that the Russian president did not want to talk to him even on the phone.
"If I wanted to talk tomorrow, President Putin would talk. And also if he wishes. But if you ask me, he takes into account Serbia's position, and from this point of view, President Putin does not want to request such a conversation. Although it sounds ridiculous that the president of a powerful Russia requests a conversation with someone (like) me in this way. He would have asked if he didn't think he would put me in danger like that, and if he didn't understand the pressure we are under," Vucic said.
He also recalled that he had a conversation with Vladimir Zelensky on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit on July 18 in the UK, noting that "Zelensky is three times more aware of himself" than many others with whom he "talked there and whom he listened to there (on the sidelines of the summit)."
According to the Serbian president, the world is "sliding towards disaster," and his task is to preserve his country in these conditions.