The First Lady of Ukraine and the head of Ukrainian diplomacy visits Serbia

2024-05-13 09:22:48Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The First Lady of Ukraine and the head of Ukrainian diplomacy visits Serbia
The First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska

The First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, started a bilateral visit to Belgrade on Sunday.

This is the first visit of a senior Ukrainian figure to Serbia since Moscow began its occupation of Ukraine in February 2022.

Their visit began with a visit to the Belgrade City Library, where they were accompanied by Tamara Vucic, the wife of the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic. Zelenska visited the medieval Serbian town and castle of Kalemegdan, Serbian news agency Tanjug reported.

Meanwhile, Zelenska wrote on the Instagram social network that she visited the archaeological site with the "Roman Hall" exhibition at the Belgrade City Library, as well as the "Ukrainian Shelf", a corner of the library with Ukrainian books that was founded under her patronage.

She also participated in the signing of an agreement for cooperation between the universities of Belgrade and Kyiv, as reported.

Serbia supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which includes the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. However, although a candidate for European Union (EU) membership since 2012, Serbia has not adapted its policy external with that of Brussels, not imposing sanctions on Russia after the invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Zelenska and Kuleba arrived to visit Serbia ten days after the election of the new Serbian Government, which includes two ministers close to Russia, for which Belgrade has been criticized by the EU and the US.

Aleksandar Vulin - who has been under US sanctions since July 2023, among other things, because of his ties to Russia - was appointed deputy prime minister. Meanwhile, Nenad Popović, who is on the US blacklist due to his ties to Russia, was appointed minister without portfolio.

Meanwhile, President Vučić has met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy three times since February 2022, when the Russian invasion began, during international forums abroad and most recently at a regional meeting in Tirana in February.

Since 2022, Serbia has accepted thousands of Ukrainian refugees, sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and promised to help Kiev in its post-war reconstruction efforts./REL


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