ANALYSIS || Aleksandar Vucic, president of Serbia, says he is one of the people who knows Putin best. But what if it’s Vucic himself who’s scared? “If there is a nuclear attack from Russia, Serbia is close by”
These were words spoken just over a week ago but went unnoticed in the West: on November 19, the day after Joe Biden’s ‘ok’ for the use of long-range American weapons against targets on Russian territory, the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, .
“I will tell you openly what I think. I think that no one will hesitate to use all the weapons at their disposal (…) In the West, they will say that Putin is joking and threatening with this, but in reality he is afraid, and I tell you that few people know President Putin like I do.”
Vucic did not elaborate on this supposed fear of Putin. At first glance, it may seem strange that a leader seen as an ally of the Kremlin would describe the Russian president in this way but, for CNN Portugal commentator Francisco Pereira Coutinho, these statements are not an accident and much less an oversight.
“Putin has threatened the West with nuclear weapons over and over again. What Vucic is trying to say is ‘no, this is really serious.’ “
In the same intervention, the Serbian leader lamented the fact that his country was “completely unprepared” for a nuclear war. “We have space for 257 thousand people in shelters and we will have to start rebuilding the infrastructure, at least to reach the number of one million, one and a half million, that we can accommodate in shelters. We will work diligently in this direction. I apologize to the citizens for not We started this work on time, but we will deal with it.”
For Francisco Pereira Coutinho, who specializes in International Law, Vucic’s rhetoric is in line with that of authoritarian leaders. “Basically, he is frightening the population, making them believe in Putin’s nuclear threat. This type of leaders lives a lot with the population’s anxiety and perceptions of insecurity”, explains Francisco Pereira Coutinho, who de-dramatizes Vladimir Putin’s supposed fear.
“Vucic is trying to get this nuclear rhetoric taken seriously, but we are at a stage where Russian troops are having some success on the battlefield and a new administration in the US that is supposedly more supportive is coming. This would not be the time for the use of nuclear weapons, it would not bring him any advantage”, highlights Francisco Pereira Coutinho. “Vucic didn’t say that Putin was crazy. Then we should be worried. Vucic said that Putin was scared. (…) But scared of what? He could be scared if the Ukrainian counteroffensive had been successful, if the Ukrainians were already to enter Russia or [Yevgeny] Prigozhin returned from the realm of the dead and attacked Moscow again. In this context, I don’t believe it.”
CNN Portugal commentator Tiago André Lopes is less emphatic about Putin’s possible threat. Regarding the credibility of the Serbian president’s words, the International Relations specialist highlights that “it is difficult for us to know for sure” the truth of what was said. “I think there was a small amount of credibility when Russia initially feared the use of long-range missiles, because Zelensky’s initial idea, which is not the current one, was to have the long range to attack Moscow, to be able to attack bases in center. It was not about attacking Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod and staying there”, explains the CNN Portugal commentator. “Above all, the fear was the ATACMS, the SCALP and the Storm Shadow.”
“However”, continues Tiago André Lopes, “it seems that the Kremlin has suddenly taken a deep breath again, it is less afraid than it was a week ago. Nobody spoke. Not Putin, not Lavrov, not [Mikhail] Mishustin. You are that [Dmitry] Medvedev spoke, but Medvedev is like [Mykhailo] Podolyak, he’s an advisor, he doesn’t count for much, he doesn’t decide anything.”
As for Putin’s fear, Tiago André Lopes has no doubts. “Putin’s fear is the famous fear of Russia’s siege, the idea that the US is instrumentalizing NATO to create a kind of ‘cordon sanitaire’, as the famous program intended Star Wars (Strategic Defense Initiative), around Russia. This is the great fear, which is the attempt to enclose and dismember the Slavophile space and the influence of Russia, whether in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and so on”, says the commentator for CNN Portugal, who points to the “trauma of the 90s and the liberalization of Russia” as the reason for this fear.
“[O medo] is very strong in this Putin administration and in Russian society. After almost three years of war, there were very few anti-war and anti-regime demonstrations. We cannot be so innocent as to think that it is just because there is instrumentalization of the media, no. The population understands this war. He may not actively support it, but he understands it,” says Tiago André Lopes. “Vucic says this in a warning tone. Vucic is afraid that because Putin is afraid, he might use nuclear energy. If there is a nuclear attack, Serbia is close by. The idea is to say ‘don’t keep thinking that everything Putin says is a bluff, don’t keep thinking that the regime is just making empty threats – because it’s not. The regime is warning you that it is reaching a point where it may feel, just as the doctrine says, that it is legitimate for its survival to use nuclear weapons.”
