Nearly 100 bomb threats in Belgrade on Tuesday led to mass evacuations of schools, public buildings, restaurants, and other public places, Reuters reported.
Email threats have been sent to more than 90 schools, restaurants, the zoo, the presidency, bridges, shopping malls, and a football stadium in the Serbian capital. No explosive devices were found by the explosives disposal teams that searched the sites.
Prime Minister Ana Bernabic said, without providing evidence or further details, that the threats came from Serbia’s position on the war in Ukraine and come from abroad.
“We are the only country in Europe that has not imposed sanctions on Russia and … these bomb threats are pressure from abroad because we refuse to impose sanctions,” she said in a television interview.
Interior Minister Alexander Vulin said the threats were “part of a special war” against Serbia, adding that police under his ministry was investigating them.
Serbia is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas and oil. It is a traditional Orthodox Christian and Slavic ally of Moscow and maintains close political and military ties with Russia.
In April, Serbian President Alexander Vucic accused Ukraine and an unnamed European country of being behind a series of false bomb threats against Air Serbia planes flying between Moscow and Belgrade. Ukraine has rejected Vucic’s allegations as “unfounded”.
Vucic: We will live better if we sanction Russia, but we will fight not to do so
Serbs would live better if their country imposed sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine, but resistance to such a move will last. This was announced by President Alexander Vucic.
In an interview with TV Prva, he explained that Belgrade would resist as long as possible, a month after the ruling circles discussed the possibility of Serbia coordinating its foreign policy with Russia with Western sanctions currently imposed over the war in Ukraine.
Only a month and a half ago, it adopted measures introduced by the EU for the first time due to the annexation of Crimea.
Belgrade is paying dearly (“tenfold”) for refusing to impose sanctions – including for access to capital markets and the risk of debt service difficulties, and even for finding the necessary funds for salaries and pensions.
The president insisted that Serbia does not seek to benefit from its actions, nor does it want to hear “thank you”, but does so “out of self-respect” and international law, because “sanctions are unfair and unnecessary”.
Everyone says: “Vucic announces sanctions”. No. We will resist as long as we can to maintain our policy.
– Alexander Vucic, President of Serbia
Vucic does not specify who he will fight. Earlier this month, however, he was in Berlin, where the war in Ukraine was among the leading topics of discussion with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
