Serbia may have armed Ukraine despite neutrality: leaked documents

Serbia, which has ostensibly remained neutral over Russia’s war in Ukraine, agreed to supply Kyiv with weapons, according to a Reuters review of one of the recently leaked Pentagon documents.

The document, dated March 2, included a chart of European support for Ukraine indicating that Serbia refused to provide training to Ukrainian troops but agreed to help arm the country, or has already done so.

Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic told Reuters the claims were not true.

“Serbia did not, nor will it be selling weapons to the Ukrainian nor the Russian side, nor to countries surrounding that conflict,” Vucevic said in a statement to the news outlet.

He added, however, that some Serbian-made weapons could “magically appear” in Ukraine, though he dismissed that as having “nothing” to do with his country.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has kept his nation neutral during the war, refusing to sanction Russia, and has in the past boasted about his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Last month, he criticized the International Criminal Court for issuing an arrest warrant against Putin over the Russian leader’s abduction of Ukrainian children.

“I think issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, not to go into legal matters, will have bad political consequences and it says that there is a great reluctance to talk about peace, about truce,” Vučić said in remarks to the press, according to The Associated Press.

The leaked Pentagon documents are part of a trove of records that have surfaced online since at least March, offering startling news about U.S. allies and insights into the war in Ukraine.

The Defense Department is conducting a review of the leaked documents, while the Justice Department is investigating a formal, criminal investigation of the leak.

It’s unclear how many of the documents have been manipulated, but at least one estimating casualty rates in the war was altered.