Belgrade says it is profiting from the arms and ammunition race, but is worried about NATO encirclement
Serbia’s military industry has ramped up production of weapons and ammunition to keep up with skyrocketing demand driven by the conflict in Ukraine, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday. Visiting the IDEX weapons fair in UAE, Vucic said the world is preparing for war.
“Everyone needs ammunition. Everyone is buying everything, anything we can make gets sold,” Vucic said. “I don’t know how some of this stuff hasn’t ended up on the battlefields of Ukraine yet.”
Demand for things like rockets for ‘Grad’ multiple launcher systems has gone up by 70%, the Serbian president added, noting that Belgrade is looking to expand some of its ammunition production, since it’s all spoken for.
“Ammunition is selling like hotcakes,” Vucic said.
He claimed Russia uses up 35,000 rounds per day, and Ukraine about 16,000, which adds up over the course of a year. Serbia is trying to hold back at least some of the hardware for its own needs, Vucic said.
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“Our army and our country must come first. At least 30% of everything made in Serbia must stay in Serbia,” he told reporters. “We can only sell what we can spare. Everyone wants to fight, everyone is getting ready for war.”
Worried about its own neighborhood, Belgrade is also importing whatever it can, including a bid for Rafale fighter jets from France. According to Vucic, a contract with the Emirates for kamikaze drones should be signed later this week.
“We are surrounded by NATO countries. Bosnia-Herzegovina is not [a member], but NATO troops are there too, as well as in part of our own territory, in Kosovo,” the Serbian president said.
Asked for comment about the situation in Ukraine, Vucic said he was expecting “great changes on the battlefield” in the next two to three days, which may lead to further Western pressure on Serbia. Vucic has so far resisted US and EU demands to sanction Russia, insisting on Belgrade’s military neutrality in the ongoing conflict.
The IDEX 2023 global defense exhibition, held in Abu Dhabi, is one of the largest arms fairs in the world. This week’s event is attended by 1,350 vendors from 65 countries. In addition to ammunition, Serbia is advertising its ‘Nora’ self-propelled howitzer and armored vehicles ‘Lazar’ and ‘Milos.’
Any moment now I am expecting John Cleese (a veteran of Monty Python) to jump out of the bushes and announce the creation of the Ministry of Silly Wars, with Donald Trump as the deranged leader. For you youngsters out there, Monty Python’s skit, The Ministry of Silly Walks, helped make the members of MP legends. I had to reference Monty Python because the line of bullshit the Trump administration is feeding the American people and the world about the amazing, obliterating US attack on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, is more ridiculous that all of the silly walks pictured in the following video:
My hopes that Donald Trump would finally act like a responsible adult are dashed. He’s a dangerous buffoon. While the team around him are working frantically to maintain the fiction that Trump has a vision and is calling the shots on the foreign policy front, he is careening around the globe like an out-of-control cue ball on a billiards table. It started a week ago… first, he claimed...
Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults. Official media said China is about to enter a three-aircraft-carrier era, with the Fujian expected to enter service by 2025.
After the launch of the Fujian on June 17, 2022, it carried out its first sea trial from May 1 to 8 in 2024. Since then, the Fujian has completed multiple sea trials, accumulating more than 100 days of sea trial, China Central Television (CCTV) News reported on Tuesday.
Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military affairs commentator, said that the aircraft carrier Fujian has been making steady progress in sea trials, and is expected to be commissioned within this year, CCTV News reported.
With a full displacement of more than 80,000 tons, the Fujian is the world's first conventionally powered aircraft carrier to feature electromagnetic catapult technologies, according to CCTV News. The report noted that it will carry a wide variety of carrier-borne...
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China and Central Asian countries have explored and formed the China-Central Asia Spirit, which features mutual respect, mutual trust, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, and the pursuit of common modernization through high-quality development.
Xi made the remarks in his speech at the second China-Central Asia Summit in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Xi said that the Chinese side has decided to establish three cooperation centers and a trade facilitation platform within the China-Central Asia cooperation mechanism.
When addressing the summit, Xi said these institutions include the China-Central Asia poverty reduction cooperation center, the China-Central Asia education exchange cooperation center, the China-Central Asia desertification control cooperation center, as well as the China-Central Asia trade facilitation cooperation....more below
