Up to 3,000 Ukrainian refugees, over 100,000 Russians in Serbia - ambassador
Over 16,000 refugees from Ukraine arrived in Serbia following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, but the vast majority traveled further to other European countries, Ambassador of Ukraine to Serbia Oleksandr Lytvynenko said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
"According to estimates, as of today, there are 2,300 Ukrainian refugees here… Russians number over 100,000. Some of them are opposition-minded, but by no means all," the diplomat said.
He noted that for Russia, Serbia is "the gateway to the Western Balkans, and thus to maintaining a presence in this region and the possibility of its destabilization." They actively play on existing contradictions, primarily the Kosovo issue, and have several serious channels of influence in the country.
"At the same time, Russian influence should not be exaggerated. I will give just one example. On the main Knez Mihailova Street, there are four or five bookstores. The largest is Laguna. You enter, and before you is a hall with about 40 shelves. These are books in English, and one is in Russian. This is the ratio," Lytvynenko noted.
When asked how local residents treat Ukrainians, he replied that "for us in Serbia, the cultural barrier is very low." "For example, language. I read somewhere and absolutely agree with this assessment: for a Ukrainian, the language is too understandable to learn, and too complex to speak… Serbs, for the most part, do not have a biased attitude toward Ukrainians. And religion plays a different role here than for us—it is much greater. When they learn during communication that Ukrainians are Orthodox, then they are altogether ‘ours,’ brothers," the ambassador said.
At the same time, the diplomat admitted that Serbs look at Ukrainians "through Russian glasses," while Ukrainians, in his opinion, believe that Serbia is "Russia in the Balkans, which is absolutely not the case." "This is a state that emerged after the collapse of Yugoslavia, a country that seeks to follow a neutral policy. This is very difficult. They are very afraid of making mistakes after the tragedy of the 1990s, which left a huge trauma. The 1999 war hurts to this day," Lytvynenko said.
